We had a moment, just one moment
That will last beyond a dream, beyond a lifetime
We are the lucky ones
Some people never get to do all we got to do

Carole King, Now and forever  

 

We loved music. Listening to it. Watching it. Even singing it in the car at the top of our lungs. We couldn’t get enough Broadway. In fact, one of our earliest dates was to Hairspray, where my then new boyfriend suitably impressed me as much with the front row seats he procured as a bird’s eye view of Harvey Fierstein.

I often teased this thoughtful, musical guy about his Rudy Vallee voice but I admit it was a good tenor. I could hear him singing shower show tunes – on the next floor! (He never knew I taped him, standing outside the bathroom, during full voice one day. I felt bad (as I laughed) at the time, but am so glad now I have yet another piece of him.)

A natural on stage, a ham actually, he inspired my granddaughter to follow suit in community theater. He encouraged her gorgeous voice, sending her to drama lessons and including her with us to so many Broadway shows. Music had a central part in our wedding, too. We sang to each other as we danced to a song that always spoke to us, Colin Raye’s All My Roads:

I don’t regret a single broken heart
That taught me what love is and what it’s not
Someone must have planned our two paths would cross
I couldn’t see it then but I was never lost

We were both insatiable readers, and competitively slogged through nightly crossword puzzles together. Often, we’d reminisce about the stunning sculptures in Rome’s Borghesi Museum and we talked creative shop constantly, brainstorming advertising ideas, each having the other side of the same coin. On the other hand, this sophisticated guy would regale me with funny, often weird voices to make me laugh (or irritate me when I was trying to hear the last minutes of a tv show). He loved puns and just plain nonsense because, like Dr. Seuss said “it wakes up the brain cells’ and he constantly kidded about his ‘young brain’. Cultured. Bright. Funny. Creative. Musical. He was the package.

Music and lyrics are still where I go to find what I can’t articulate and I guess Garth Brooks sang it best:

 And now I’m glad I didn’t know
The way it all would end, the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance; I could have missed the pain
But I’d of had to miss the dance.

He was the ultimate tough act to follow.  Well played, ‘kiddo’, well played.