Rivers Til I Reach You

Unloading dishes in my kitchen in Pasadena with the music on, and boom, I’m collapsing with grief because a song came on we sang a lot, as a family, the summer my dad died (Rivers and Roads by The Head and the Heart).

I don’t mean to make us sound like the Von Trapps, but we are. My mom never sang a melody as she sang along in the car. She would always harmonize with Karen Carpenter or John Denver or Willie Nelson. She would whistle as she cooked. She sang Raffi songs at my Kindergarten class with a classical guitar as we all sat in a circle like tiny cult members ready to follow her where ever she wanted to take us. She seemed like a celebrity — unselfconscious and glowing as she controlled an instrument as big as we were. When you are five, you do not know the difference between your mother and Stevie Nicks when your mother comes to sing in your classroom.

I bet a five-year-old Matthew Anderson, Stevie Nick’s adopted kid, would not have been able to tell a huge difference between the two of them either to be honest.

We grew up all music all the time.

Washing my hands in the ladies room at a restaurant in Westwood and I’m collapsing with grief because all the music he smiled to came like parking lot in a tornado: chunks and pieces rushing towards a smaller version of me.

I would sleep on my parents bedroom floor and not call long distance from their bedroom phone as a joke. I would beg for a mattress to be near them, my young parents, tired of the invasion but loving us like panicking puppies.

You tolerated me and thought I was cute until you you were shocked we both have the same interests.

And here I am alone without my idol, my icon. I miss you today my daddy.