One Love and Two Lives

On May 28, 2022 it was 25 years since my dad died. The next day would have been my mother's 100th birthday.

It was challenging yet important to visit places my folks lived and worked and worshipped and raised their family.  

There is a saying out there that "we are as sick as our secrets." As someone who grew up in a family with a secret - in this case that my dad had been in a mental institution when I was born - I ac

There was a natural progression of places Pat and I visited as we honored my parents' lives. We started with places that represented the lives they had lived.

My dad died on May 28, 1997. My mother turned 75 the next day. For more than twenty years on the 28th we celebrated my dad's whole life and his dying day.

Pat and I left the river and went to the cemetery. It was beginning to rain.

For our last stop we returned to the river. To a place our family visited regularly when we first moved to Spokane. There is a suspension bridge there that crosses the river.

Over the years I've written a number of songs for my mom and my dad. For each of them and for them as a couple. "One Love and Two Lives" holds a special place.

My dad was in a mental institution when I was born. He eventually came home and had a full and successful life. At the same time  our family was, in certain ways, "haunted" by the secret, the stigma, and the specter of mental illness.

As we get older the line between this world and the next, whatever form that takes, becomes fainter. More of those we love go across that line. Each day brings us personally closer to the line.