In June 2008, I was driving from CA to Seattle, to my folks' place, to celebrate finishing my PhD... it was early morning & I was an hour out when I called my mom to tell her my ETA & ask her if she needed me to get them anything at the store (she didn't)...

After hanging up the phone, from talking with me, my mom made my Dad a cup of coffee to bring to wake him up & let him know where I was.
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He didn't wake up.

My Dad was 56 when he died in his sleep from a heart attack.
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Decades of night terrors & PTSD from "serving in the conflict overseas" caught up with him.
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You can live with a figuratively broken heart for only so long, you know, before it's not figurative anymore.

He was a folk musician & songwriter.
I share his music on here a lot.
Our family is really blessed that so much of what he created in this world we have to hold onto. Videos & recordings of his songs & his stage banter.
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And he still shows up in my dreams.

When I was round about 11 is when my Dad decided to go whole hog into folk music as his full time.
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But before that, my whole life, he had always played his guitar & sang songs for us.
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Small family birthday parties.
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& rowdy ruckus all nighter barn burners...

And 9 times out of 10, the songs he sang before he started writing his own.
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were John Prine songs.
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Sam Stone.
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Hello in there.
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Bruised Oranges.
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Spanish Pipedream.
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omg SPANISH PIPEDREAM

We lived in a falling down farmhouse in rural Ohio.
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The monthly rent was the property taxes.
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The only things nearby were train tracks and a tavern my folks got cokes & 6 year old me could eat grilled cheese sandwiches & bartender Ernie let me dance on the bar.

We had a TV but rarely papers.
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My folks had gone to the country & created a home.
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We planted a little garden, ate a lot of peaches.
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And my dad was adamant that you could only find Jesus on your own.

And even as my dad wrote dozens of epic songs, he was a wonderful songwriter,
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So clearly he was deeply, perennially inspired by John Prine.
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& my Dad always played John Prine songs around campfires, at my high school graduation celebration, at my college parties

I grew up with my own personal John Prine human jukebox.
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One I love with every fiber of my being.
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My heart weeps for John's family tonight.
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It weeps for me too.
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For John.
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And for my Dad.

Because we don't move on from grief.
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We move forward with grief.
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And it is always there.
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But we don't have to let it be a Chain of Sorrow.
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Sometimes grief wraps you in a big warm hug, like love leaking out of the shadows.

So I am going to listen to John Prine tonight.
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and cry.
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and wallow in the best memories a person can have.
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and sing.
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because the years just flow by like a broken down dam.