The last few nights this song has been popping into my head. I hadn’t heard it for many years, so I had to look it up to listen to it because I feel such a strong connection to Tommy through this song. It was one of our songs from our dance club days – a song that goes best with late night listening. We used to listen to it in the car or in his bedroom. One of us had the 12″ record, so we listened to all the versions.
When I listened to it again tonight it felt so different to me this time. The song used to feel very dreamy to us, like a magical sort of lullaby. But, tonight… hearing it without Tommy… it felt very… very sad. Suddenly many of the lyrics applied to Tommy, and I felt like I was sending this song out into the universe to him. I imagined the song reaching high up to him, and I felt like ET standing there on the edge of the cliff with his Speak & Spell when he was trying to “phone home”, hoping to be heard.
Even the sounds of bells at the end of this song sounded like they were calling out to Tommy:
Tommy, I know I’m not the only one trying to “phone home” to you. Many songs have been popping into my head that I haven’t thought of in years and I keep thinking it’s because of you.
I hadn’t been able to post anything lately, but I will be picking it up again. I hope everyone else is doing okay. We’re all trying to be positive and keep Tommy’s sense of humor going, and we will keep that up as best as we can, but we’re also all feeling a huge sense of loss, and the pain that goes along with that. It’s still hard for me to believe, even though the reality of it has hit me many times. I’m sure anyone who has ever loved Tommy or appreciated his sense of humor or his unique, full-of-life spirit will understand the range of emotions that comes with such a loss.
I’m sure Tommy would want me to end this on a happy note, so I sat here a while trying to find something and it finally came to me. Samson the Cat. Samson was always looking out the front door window whenever we arrived. It was very sweet the way Samson liked to keep an eye on things. He seemed to have a wise, sweet spirit. He was the first cat I ever got to know pretty well, since I grew up with dogs. Because of this, I learned Samson’s meow as THE cat meow. Tommy used to imitate Samson’s meow & I started doing it too.
Many years later, I was visiting my husband’s sister and we were talking about cats, then she and I started meowing for some reason. When I meowed, she said “That’s a Siamese!!” I said, “It is? It’s the meow I really know – my friend Tommy’s cat, Samson… and he was a Siamese! I never made the connection that Siamese cats had a different kind of meow!”
So, Samson set the standard for me. His meow is the meow I know well, and I can still hear both Samson, and Tommy meowing like Samson, in my head. Tommy has said “Meow” in many ways over the years, but the “Meow” I know best, is the Samson “Meow”.
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