Last Farewell
I’m going away at eventide
Across the wild and the rolling sea
I bid you stay, stay here by my side
And share a last farewell with me
(From Last Farwell, written by Randy Sparks)
Today is Monday, July 19th.
As is typical for a Monday, we had a little harder time waking up, and maybe on this particular Monday an even harder time getting motivated to get out of bed.
So after a longer than usual time drinking coffee and reading emails, we finally got going.
I woke up this morning as I often do with a song in my head.
Randy Sparks wrote the Last Farewell and it was featured on the New Christy Minstrels’ album Ramblin’ in 1963.
I remember this album as a kid because my dad had this album, and because I really liked it.
The New Christy Minstrels were a folk band established by Sparks in 1961. It included at times Barry Maguire (“Eve of Destruction”) and Gene Clark who went on to join the Byrds.
We had one of those huge stereo pieces of furniture with the sliding tops and the record player and AM and FM radio under one of those sliders and a bin for records under the other. It had a couple of speakers behind the decorative cloth and walnut front.
By the time we were old enough to leave home my brother and I pretty much had those speakers blown and by the end all you could hear was vibration and distortion.
The photo above is one that sits on a dresser in the room that Kim and I most often stay in when at my parent’s house.
It’s a photo of Donny with my father on my dad’s boat.
I have gone through lots of photos recently at my parent’s house that have brought back lots of memories and feelings.
This photo reminded me of the few days that Donny spent with my father and mother in between the Fourth of July that summer of 2002 and the next week when my parents took him to his soccer camp in Salisbury, Maryland. Although this pic was taken on a different weekend, my dad and Donny did go out fishing during that stay just a couple of weeks before the accident.
That year July 19 was on Friday.
I know my dad valued that short time spent with Donny.
And I remember at Donny’s funeral my father telling me he just wanted to remember Donny as he was the weekend they went fishing.
And though today I guess we are more sensitive to reminders, and in fact may receive more reminders, but the truth is it’s a day to get through.
Because tomorrow will be the same in the obvious sense but a little different. The memories will be more pleasant and enjoyable. We can choose those differently.
As we would like to remember.
Today we can’t always avoid that.
I know I spend a lot of time writing about how much time I have spent with my dad, in particular this past year, and even this past weekend.
It’s been important for him in this period of his life and it has been important to me.
Because I know the time will come when I will value that time spent, even more than I do now.
A wandering song is all I know
Yet, I love you more, more than words can tell…
I leave you now, with a last farewell
(from Last Farewell)
