Matthew M Cornett

Category: Author Spotlight

  • “Time After Time”

    Growing up, we always hear that time seems to move so much faster the older we get. If you’re like me, you never believed it until you experienced it. 

    I remember hearing “old” people say it back then but it never made sense to me. When I was a kid, summer break felt like an eternity. I remember going back to school in August feeling like I hadn’t seen my friends in forever but in reality, it had only been a couple months. I read somewhere that the passage of time seems so much longer to children only because they have experienced so little of it. That makes sense and explains why their perception of it is different, which in turn, explains why that perception shifts the older we get. I guess after 53 summers you’ve “been there and done that” and they all start to blend together.

    But time doesn’t move faster or slower. It’s a constant and it’s only our perception of it that gives us those feelings. But every once in a while something hits you right in the face with it all and you ask yourself where did it all go? Yesterday my sister in law sent me an old photo she found of me, my nephews, and my son from the summer of 2006, 19 years ago! The six of us were riding a rollercoaster at Dollywood. As I looked at it the first thought I had was “Man, I’d be so sick if I was on that right now” but then another thought hit me hard. The boys in that photo were between the ages of 8 and 15. Heck, I was 34 years old! Where did that time go? They are all grown, amazing men now between the ages of 27 and 34. My oldest nephew is the same age I was riding that rollercoaster. What in the world??? Where did that time go?

    I have said this time and time again. Most of us just don’t truly see the significance of things until it is too late and hospice reinforced that to me daily. In the 14th chapter of my book If We Never Meet Again, I wrote about this very thing. In that chapter, I met a broken man, not much older than me, who was about to lose his wife not much older than my own. It’s a story that had its twists and turns that ended with her passing away before we could even help her. The last time I talked to him I told him that if he or his daughter needed anything to just reach out. His response was “I appreciate all you tried to do. But it don’t matter now.” 

    When it came time to pick a song for that chapter, there was only one choice: Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time.” I have always loved that song. I remember the girl who lived across the street from us had the cassette tape. I would go over to her house, and we’d shoot hoops and sit on her  back porch and listen to music. I’ve always had a melancholy side to me even as a kid and I loved how that song was both beautiful and sad, inspiring yet a little depressing at the same time. I’m sure I didn’t understand the bittersweet appeal of the song then as much as I do now but I really likes it even as a kid. 

    If you get a chance, go to Youtube and watch “Time After Time-Cyndi Lauper: Music Production Breakdown.” The first thing the guy mentions is that the rhythm part of the song made up of a kick drum and Cabasa. The cabasa is reminiscent of a ticking clock and the kick drum sounds like a beating heart. Let that sink in.

    The guitar begins and she sings “Lying in my bed, I hear the clock tick and think of you.” Honestly, there really was no other song that could have worked for the chapter. It ultimately reminds us that time moves on and there’s nothing we can do about it. 

    But what has always blown my mind about the song is how there is still hope and comfort even in the midst of such sadness:

    If you’re lost, 

    you can look, 

    and you will find me

    Time after time

    If you fall

    I will catch you

    I’ll be waiting

    Time after time

    Yes, time moves on and yes, there is pain, but as long as we have the people we love, we can make it. But what if those people are gone? For me, the lyrics still work, because we have those memories. I lost one of my childhood and teenage friends to cancer way too soon. But every once in a while, I think about him and yes, it makes me a little sad, but it also brings a smile to my face too. The thought that the ones we love will still be with us even if it’s only in our memories is sadly comforting to me and I hope it can be for you too. 

    If you still have those people in your life, cherish them each and every day because you don’t know how much longer you will have them.

    I guarantee that husband and everyone else who has lost someone that they love would tell you the exact same thing. 

  • Stay Gold

    I’m sure at some point every generation has said this, but if I hear that “these kids today are worse than they have ever been,” the Kentucky boy in me just might have to make an appearance. Seriously. It’s getting old and honestly, that comment is only a reflection of yourself. I know that sounds harsh but it’s the truth.

    The problem, and the worst thing that any adult working with children can do, is to forget. When we forget, we make assumptions that those kids are there for the same reasons we are when the fact is they are not. We have different priorities than they do and that’s just a fact. We want them to learn while they just want to have fun. But you don’t remember that for some reason, do you?

    Be honest with yourself for a moment. When you were their age, what was the last thing you were interested in? I know that when I was in high school, the last thing I cared about was what was going on in the English classroom, except for maybe the girls across the room. Grammar? Boring. Literature? It wasn’t anything I wanted to read, so again, boring. And writing? Ugh. None of it appealed to me but I did enough of what I needed to do to keep the teacher and my parents off my back. I would have much rather been hanging out with my friends, listening to my music, or honestly anything other than what my English teacher wanted me to do. 

    So why is it that when kids act and feel the same way we did, we say “these kids are terrible and worse than ever?” What makes them so terrible? The fact that they are just like you were? It goes back to my point: that we forget what it was like and when we do that, it shades all of our interactions with them and they know it. They can feel it from you and it’s damaging to the learning environment.

    Now, ask yourself, what could have made that classroom a little better for you, if anything? I’m not saying I have the answers but maybe we as the adults can do something different. For one, we can at least act like we want them to be there. I like my students, no matter how idiotic and goofy they can be. Trust me, them saying “67” every time they turn around could be so much worse. They could be saying some of the more inappropriate things we used to say. At least they’re just being goofy kids, which is what they are. Take my advice: jump in there and be just as silly from time to time even if you are the butt of the joke. They will see a whole different side of you and it may impact that classroom for the better.

    Also, remember this. Most of the stuff we want them to do is completely boring to them. Being bored with our stuff doesn’t make them the morons you think they are. It makes them kids and as the adult in the room, you need to find ways to make it connect with them. If you can’t, you’ll only compound the problem. Never change the learning priorities but at least try to make it fun and be the idiot who tries to connect with them. Build a relationship with them and have fun doing it. Trust me: they get so much of the opposite from other adults, at least they’ll be slightly entertained as you are trying to teach them and that connection will pay off, I promise. 

    One of my favorite poems by EE Cummings says (technical errors intended if you know anything about him as a poet:

    Children guessed(but only a few

    And down they forgot as up they grew

    That’s one of the saddest lines ever to me. It reminds me that we are cursed to forget as we grow up and that just stinks. That breaks my heart for them and for us as adults but what can we do? I say fight it. As Johnny told Ponyboy and our generation: “Stay gold.” I really do believe that’s the key. 

    These kids are worth it. And you are too.

  • Lesson from The Iliad

    I’m going to hold off one more week discussing my book. I have to admit that teaching and being back in the classroom is dominating my mind again this week and that’s not a bad thing.

    Being back in the classroom has been an amazing experience. Teachers had kept telling me that Covid changed everything and that teaching wasn’t the same, but thankfully, I’m not seeing that. From what I am seeing kids are still kids and I am loving being back and part of their lives. From my quiet group that look at me like I’m crazy with all my silly ways, to my fun and rowdy crew that make me feel like Mr. Kotter. Seriously, I might as well have Vinnie, Juan, Washington, and Horshack in that classroom and they are just as entertaining! I’m having a blast.

    But something hit me the other day. We are having an event this month focusing on reading, and our instructional coach asked us to list our favorite book and submit a photo of ourselves from back then. I found my 9th grade yearbook, took a pic of me back when my hair was as dark as could be, and submitted my favorite book (Pat Conroy’s The Prince of Tides). I had to walk to the front of the building for something and saw the associate principal of my house. I said something like, “Man, I hope I don’t regret that picture I submitted of myself to the Admin.” He paused for a second and was confused. I didn’t realize he was caught up in something at that moment, but he stopped and said, “Sorry, Mr. Cornett. I’m dealing with some things right now.” I immediately apologized but then said “No, I’m sorry” and told me three very serious things he was dealing with right then and there. I told him how much I appreciated all he does for us and went back to the workroom.

    As I was walking down the hall, it stuck with me. There I was existing in my wonderful little teacher world thinking about something silly like an old photo of me that the kids will be seeing and most certainly giving me a well deserved hard time over. I spend my planning time thinking about what I can do that day to make the classroom a little more fun and engaging. I love to find a little video clip or a song that helps the kids connect with the content and stuff like that is always on my mind.

    But you know what’s not? The kind of stuff the Admin has to deal with every single day so I can stay there in my little teacher land. People often say that teachers are there in the trenches every day doing the hard work of helping students learn and grow and I agree with that completely. But do you know what makes that possible? It’s the line of administrators who are constantly bombarded with negativity day after day protecting us and keeping those things at bay the best they can. They are the phalanx line that makes our work possible.

    I get to teach The Odyssey this year and can’t wait for that unit, but if I’m honest, The Iliad is my favorite of the two. I have always been fascinated with Warfare and Literature. I’d say it comes from watching those kinds of movies with my Dad. In the 80’s, he took me to see Missing in Action, Rambo, First Blood II and plenty of other movies like that. But it was 1986’s Platoon that gave me a different perspective. Combined with discovering Apocalypse Now on late night cable, I became very interested in the ways that warfare affected the boys and men who were called into battle. In Grad School, I wrote my Thesis on Fourteenth Century Warfare and Rhetoric in Arthurian Poetry, so it’s kind of my thing.

    In the 16th book of the Iliad, Achilles gives a speech to Patroclus and the Myrnidions (his soldiers) to get them ready for the coming battle. Homer writes that after the speech, “With these words he put heart and soul into them all, and they serried their companies yet more closely when they heard of their king. As the stones which a builder sets in the wall of some high house which is to give shelter from the winds-even so closely were the helmets and bossed shields set against one another. Shield pressed on shield, helm on helm, and man on man..” His descriptions sound like the Greek Phalanx, where the soldiers stood in close formation with shields and spears creating an almost impenetrable unit. The idea was basically this: stand together, protect each other, and overcome. The Greeks didn’t invent the Phalanx but they used it to great success and in some historians’ minds, perfected it.

    That’s the image that came to my mind. Me standing in the comfort of my classroom with my students, all made possible because of the protective line of administrators doing the real heavy lifting. I’m not saying that teaching is all rainbows and unicorns; yes, we have our challenges, some more than others, and if you don’t have a supportive administration like I am blessed to have at my school, I completely understand your frustration. In my opinion, that school district needs to get its act together and put the right people into those positions.

    But, remember this, and I only know this because I flirted with administration early on in my career and realized it wasn’t for me. If all you did day in and day out was deal with nothing but negativity, how long would it take you to burn out? I know that I couldn’t do it. Nope. I am blessed to be able to have the next fun learning activity as my biggest worry most days.

    I went back to my administrator on Friday and told him he was gonna be the topic of my next blog. Initially, he looked at me strangely, but when I explained and then thanked him for all he does to make my job possible, he was truly thankful for the compliment. I hope it made a difference in his day.

    And I hope this inspires others to do the very same, no matter what your job. We all have people above us working behind the scenes to keep everything going.

    A little appreciation can go a long way and I’m glad I was reminded of that.

  • Solsbury Hill

    For this week’s blog, I need to take a break from talking about my book.

    This past Wednesday, while driving to work, a song came on and I have to admit that I teared up. It’s not as bad as it sounds, though. In fact, it was quite affirming. Let me explain.

    If you don’t know by now, I am going back into the classroom. For the past five years I have worked in hospice. In January of 2020, I walked away from 24 years of teaching high school English in Lexington, KY, to run a hospice here in South Carolina. During those five years, I worked with many families in this area and even wrote a book about those experiences. By May of 2025, it became very clear to me that it was time to move on and on June 2nd, I walked away from the past five years of my life. Two weeks later, I interviewed and was offered a job with the absolute best high school in this area.

    The past few weeks have been about onboarding with the school district, attending New Teacher Orientation (feeling like Billy Madison sitting with the younger students), and then district PD, learning very quickly that things have really changed in the world of education especially in terms of technology. But learning all of the new stuff has been fun and exciting and I am ready to get started.

    So what was up with the morning drive on Wednesday? Well, I was letting my Spotify DJ pick the music that morning. About halfway to the school, Peter Gabriel’s “Solsbury Hill” came on and it was perfect. If you don’t know, that song is about Gabriel leaving the band Genesis. He helped cofound the band in 1967 and finally left in 1975. Looking back, it makes complete sense. Both Gabriel and Genesis went on separately to even greater accomplishment and fame, but leaving terrified Gabriel at the time. 

    “Solsbury Hill” tells the story of a man who climbs Solsbury Hill, sees an eagle, and has a spiritual experience. He hears a voice and with his heart beating furiously, the eagle finally speaks to him and says “Son, he said, Grab your things, I’ve come to take you home.” After the experience he resigns to keep quiet about it but realizes that he was “in a rut” and something had to change. By the end of the song, he finally states “You can keep my things, they’ve come to take me home.”

    In the Billboard article “10 Reasons Peter Gabriel’s Solsbury Hill is One of the Greatest Songs of All Time,” the writer states “The story of “Solsbury Hill” — of personal epiphany, of hard decision-making, and of breaking free — was unsurprisingly interpreted to be inspired by Gabriel’s split from his old group, and the singer-songwriter has explained, “It’s about being prepared to lose what you have for what you might get, or what you are for what you might be. It’s about letting go.”

    I’m dorky enough to have already known this and that’s why listening to that song made me emotional on that drive, but it didn’t stop there. At 9:30 am that day, we had Freshman and New student orientation. I met so many young students and their parents and both groups seemed terrified but I had the opportunity to smile, connect with them, make them feel better, and reassure them that everything will be alright. Teaching truly is a noble profession and I am honored to be part of it. 

    Like Gabriel, coming back to this point was about hard decision making and letting go but when I walk onto that campus tomorrow, I won’t just be walking into a new school, and a new classroom, with new students to teach. No. I know exactly where I’ll be.

    I’ll be back home. 

    Billboard Article

    Solsbury Hill New Blood Version

  • Beautiful Son

    Beautiful Son

    When my son was born, he had colic. It was the summer of 1998. I was teaching full time and in Grad School getting my MA in English. If you know anything about colic, you know that he cried. All the time. Nonstop. But you couldn’t get upset at him because you knew the poor guy felt terrible. For some reason though, he bonded with me. If he was crying, I would take him, do my “don’t cry little bubbie” walking bounce, and he would stop. It worked every single time. Even when his mom tried to take him in the middle of the night, he would cry and cry. I would finally come get him and he would stop. There was no sense in both of us losing sleep.

    I don’t know how I made it that Fall semester. I must have looked like walking death with the lack of sleep I had for those first few months of his life, but looking back now, I wouldn’t trade those late nights for anything. The older I get, the more my mind goes back to those kinds of things: the beauty of watching your little girl sing and dance to her favorite Disney Sing Alongs, playing video games in the basement with your son for hours on end, or watching your young wife walk ahead of you on the beach with both kids on either side hand in hand. Those and a thousand other memories live on in my mind and come back now to make me smile, admittedly a little sadly, but not in a bad way. They come back to remind me of the life I’ve lived and that’s how I know I’ve been blessed.

    But that’s what made Mr. DeMarco’s story break my heart. People often ask me which was the hardest story to write or which one was the saddest. It’s a toss up between three of them and Mr. Demarco gets one of the votes. He was a New York transplant who had an amazing New York accent. I met him because he looked my company up on the internet. Sadly, he had recently buried his own son who had passed from cancer and he was looking to donate the hospital bed. When I met him at his son’s apartment a few days later you could tell he was hurting. But for some reason, donating that bed was something he needed to do. We loaded it into my truck and I made a promise to him that it would go to a good cause. 

    When it came time to write that story and pick a song for Mr. Demarco’s chapter, I chose the song “Beautiful Son” by Without Gravity. It’s a gorgeous acoustic guitar driven song that captures a magical sense of ethereal melancholy, perfect for listening to during a low key drive on a lazy afternoon. As I wrote in my book If We Never Meet Again, “When I added it to my favorite song playlist years ago it was because it reminded me of my own son. But now when I listen to it I also think about Mr. Demarco and his son I never knew.  

    Where have you gone? 

    What have you done,

    My beautiful son. 

    Where have you gone? 

    What have I done?

    I used to listen to it and think about my own son growing up, not that it was his fault. It’s just what happened but there was always a tint of sadness to it for me. But now when I listen to it I can only see that sorrowful father wondering what he was going to do.”

    The last time I talked to Mr. Demarco, I asked if he was gonna be alright. He said “Yeah. I’ll get there. Someday.” I concluded the chapter with “At some point, we all have to deal with loss. There’s no right way or wrong way and it’s different for everyone. For some reason, making sure that bed was used again and not just tossed away meant something to him and I’m glad I could help with that. I can only hope in some small way it helped that man begin to cope and that someday he does get there, wherever that may be.”

    Honestly, I can’t imagine the pain of burying your own child. I know people who have had to do it and it breaks my heart for them. I just pray that the good and beautiful memories of those children eventually overtake the long lasting horror of losing them. 

    Someone once said that grief is the price we pay for love. I truly wish it wasn’t. But if we live long enough, we will all face that reality. Do me a favor. If you know someone who has gone through something like Mr. Demarco did, reach out to them and let them know you are thinking about them. You never know what difference it might make for them today. 

  • Slip Sliding Away

    You never really know what someone could be going through. 

    If hospice taught me anything, that’s one of the more powerful lessons I learned early on and one that has stuck with me. When you see firsthand what some people go through when losing a loved one, it affects you and opens your eyes. You begin to see things differently. Just the other day, I stopped at McDonalds to get a drink and noticed an older lady eating by herself. My immediate thought was why is she alone? Did she lose someone and now she has to come here all by herself? Before working in hospice, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed and gone on with my life. But there I was wondering if I should risk looking like a weirdo and say hello or just move along. After all, maybe she needed the peace and quiet of eating alone and I was just making a bigger deal than I should. At least that’s what I told myself as I simply got my drinks and walked out to my truck. 

    The point is, we never know. My cousin posted something this morning that said “We’re all just one accident, one diagnosis, one unexpected phone call from a different life. Stay humble and don’t take anything for granted.” But that’s the problem…we do take it all for granted, don’t we? We go about our lives and don’t give a second thought to those kinds of things until it’s too late. I’m not saying we should go around gloom and doom all the time, but maybe taking a moment every once in a while to remind ourselves what’s really important could be beneficial. There’s a fine line there and we need to learn to navigate it.

    Music helps me do that. I’ve talked about this before, but that’s why I like sad songs. They are cathartic for me and remind me how good things actually are. Take Paul Simon’s “Slip Sliding Away.” Talk about a depressing song. It’s about three people-a husband, a wife, and a father, all of  whom see their lives “Slip Sliding Away.” Oh, and by the way- the one and only Oak Ridge Boys actually sang backup on it! Go read about it! It’s on “My Favorite Songs” playlist and has been since the first iteration of the list. When the main hook is“The nearer your destination, the more you’re slip sliding away,” you know you’re dealing with some heavy stuff. So why? Am I just masochistic? Or is there something more there?   

    In chapter ten of my book If We Never Meet Again, I wrote about a woman who was not exactly the happiest woman I’ve ever met and even her granddaughters admitted as much, but as I learned a little more about her story, it all started to make sense. She lost her husband early in their marriage during WWII and never remarried. One afternoon I was driving out in the country and the song came on. I listened to the first verse and the chorus without batting an eye. But when it got to the second verse it hit me.

    I know a woman became a wife

    These are the very words she uses to describe her life

    She said, “A good day ain’t got no rain”

    She said, “A bad day’s when I lie in bed

    And think of things that might have been”

    As I began to reflect on the lyrics after she had passed, it hit me. Later, I wrote about that moment: “I have always taken that part to be about a lonely wife unsatisfied with her marriage but in that moment, those lines spoke differently to me. I imagined all of the memories and emotion she must have lived through daily; images of a young couple in the 1940’s and their desperate love caught up such in a turbulent time; images of him heroically dying for his country somewhere in the South Pacific; images of her falling to her knees after being told of his death. Yes it was long ago, and yes she was able to move on and create an amazing life for her daughter and eventually her granddaughters, but those memories were still there, underneath the surface of all of that, seemingly eating away at her daily.” I concluded: “Honestly, I don’t know if we ever get over anything. We move on and we cope, but the pain of loss is always there just waiting at a moment’s notice. I’ve heard some sad love stories in my lifetime, but for some reason the one I’ve had to imagine has stayed with me to this day.”

    For me, when I listen to this song, yes it reminds me of how bad things could be and that makes me stop and think, but more importantly, it reminds me how good I’ve really got it. Sure, I’ve gone through things but comparatively? I don’t have anything to complain about. In fact, I need to be thankful for what I’ve had and what I’ve still got each and every day. 

    That’s why the Greeks liked Tragedy so much. Not because they were masochistic, but because it reminded them how good they had it and to be thankful for every day that was “slip sliding away” whether they wanted it to or not. Like Paul Simeon said, “We work our jobs, collect our pay, believe we’re gliding down the highway when in fact we’re slip sliding away.”

    That fact is inevitable. What is not, is the ability to recognize that and value each and every moment before they are gone. It’s all about a mindset and I’m thankful for the people in my life who have taught me that.

  • More Than A Feeling

    One of my favorite episodes of the X Files is “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose.” It’s about a man who can supposedly tell how someone is going to die and Mulder and Scully work with him to try to catch a serial killer who is fascinated with his own future. There’s a moment when Mr. Bruckman and Mulder are standing in the apartment of a murdered woman who collected dolls and Bruckman delivers the following lines:

    “Why does anyone do the things that they do? Why do I sell insurance? I wish I knew. Why did this woman collect dolls? What was it about her life? Was it one specific moment where she suddenly said ‘I know…dolls.’ Or was it a whole series of things starting when her parents met that somehow combined in such a way that in the end, she had no choice but to be a doll collector?” 

    That episode always made me wonder, why are we the way we are? Nature? Nurture? A combination of both or the luck or curse of being born in a particular place and time? All of those things fall together and turn us into who we become. I have always been fascinated with the concept and it’s made me do a lot of self reflection. For me, I have always wondered why it is that music has always intrigued me in the way that it does. Many people enjoy listening to music, but for me it’s almost an obsession.  I have always tried to figure out why and I talked about it my book If We Never Meet Again when I said about my childhood:

    “For some reason, I also remember rain. We had this huge front room window and I clearly remember looking out and watching the rain fall on our driveway. I was captivated with the way each drop fell and pooled up around itself. I remember just standing there barely able to see over the ledge, watching, observing, and lost in the fascination of that moment desperately trying to understand what I was witnessing while listening to my mother’s music. It’s that perfect feeling that great music still creates for me even after all these years.”

    When I wrote those lines a year and a half ago, I had an epiphany. Music, like all great art, has the power to move us. For me, it recreates that feeling of being “lost in the fascination of that moment.” Music is emotional resonance, and I can’t imagine living without it. In chapter nine of my book, I met a man who had been doing just that and I was blessed to be part of a special moment in his life that forever changed me.

    Once I had to drive a patient to his new residence. He was forced to move to another assisted living and his only relative lived 20 hours away. I always felt bad for him because he used to just sit in a dark oppressive room always half asleep because of the medication he was on for his brain tumor. My marketer arranged for a company to move his things and I volunteered to drive him. It was a bright, beautiful, South Carolina Spring morning. He sleepily climbed into my truck and we began our morning journey. I asked if he wanted to listen to some music and he basically said “Whatever.” From my book: 

    I scrolled down to my “Classic Rock” playlist, hit shuffle, and then it happened. Boston’s “More than a Feeling” started playing. The slow fade in of the 12 string string playing the opening arpeggio, repeating the pattern, the bass, and then the drums leading into the first verse of the song which I typically took for granted. Mr. Davis sat up, rolled the window down, leaned back again and began to enjoy himself for what I imagine was the first time in a long time. For a man who literally sat in the dark and barely said anything, by the time he sang out “It’s more than a feeling, (More than a Feeling), When I hear that old song they used to play” he was alive in a moment of ecstasy, punctuated with drum fills on his legs. When he finally broke out the air guitar for the solo, he was truly reborn. For the next 45 minutes, through various songs, he sang lyrics that had obviously been etched on his heart the same way they had been on mine. It was a great drive.

    I have been a fan of Boston since I was a four year old kid in my oldest brother’s room listening to their debut album on 8 track cassette back in 1976. I remember holding my brother’s white wooden Wilson brand tennis racquet like it was a guitar and rocking out to sounds none of us had really heard before. If you get a chance, get on Youtube and watch Rick Beato’s “What Makes This Song Great? More Than A Feeling.” He does a far better job than I ever could talking about the genius of Tom Scholz. He even plays an isolated track of Brad Delp’s vocals that will truly blow you away. As Paul Phillips wrote in the comments “No pro tools, no plug-ins, no copy and paste, no samples, no loops, one of the finest compositions ever” and I couldn’t agree more.  

    When I had time to reflect on those moments, I wrote “All we did was drive down the road with the windows down listening to some of the greatest music ever made. It was something so commonplace for me that had been stolen from Mr. Davis by disease and neglect. All it took was a 45 minute drive to reignite that dormant passion. One song in and he was reborn…But ever since then, whenever I roll down the windows and let the music flow over me, I always think of that moment and try to appreciate it like we always should.”

    Do yourself a favor later on today. Go for a drive, roll down the windows, play whatever works for you, and enjoy the moment. Whatever is weighing on you, let it be for just a while. It will still be there later, but for that moment, enjoy. Like Mr. Davis taught me…without those moments, all we have is the dark room of all of our struggles. Sometimes we just need to go outside, roll down the windows, and rock on. 

  • “Year of the Cat”

    I’m going to start out this week by making a confession and I don’t care if you laugh. I one hundred percent have a “soft spot” (pun intended) for 1970’s Soft Rock and I know exactly who to both thank and blame. Give me a sappy 70’s love song soaked in pop sentiment and polyester, and I’m right back there in that front room on Northside Drive, sitting in my mother’s lap in that ugly exorcist green chair, listening to her favorite 8 track cassette tapes on a rainy Fall day in 1976. Those kinds of moments probably made me the sappy 53 year old I am now but I’m good with that.

    I’m the youngest of four kids. I was born in 1972 and my sister is two years older than me which means that she started kindergarten in the Fall of 1975. From that moment until I started Kindergarten in the Fall of 1977, it was me and my mom during the day. Those days were spent playing, reading, listening to music, watching The Electric Company, and napping which I hated. Making me sit still was the worst punishment and I think my mom invented “time out.” Thinking back, I couldn’t have had a better childhood. I define my life by the beautiful memories I have and those are the earliest and most self-defining. What a gift my mother gave me. 

    The music that stands out to me from those days comes from artists like The Carpenters and Barry Manilow (again, I already said to go ahead and laugh). Hearing them and basically any mid 70’s Soft Rock song immediately transports me back to those days. To me, those songs feel like a warm cozy blanket on a lazy rainy day. If you don’t get that from some kind of music no matter how corny, I feel sorry for you. I do have a couple of playlists you can check out though so let me know!

    In chapter 6 of my book If We Never Meet Again, I tell the story of Hannah. She had terminal cancer and was only a few years older than me. As I stated early in her story “Hannah was the one patient who changed everything for me. The others before her were powerful experiences that taught me about hospice but Hannah changed me. She imprinted herself on my soul” (41). When I go to patient homes, I always end up looking at the pictures they have around and the older, the better. I’m fascinated with older pictures of times gone by. When I went to Hannah’s house for the first time, I noticed this picture of “Hannah and her sister dancing outdoors at some celebration, each with a gorgeous smile on their faces laughing right at the moment the photo was taken. Hannah was dressed in silk like material that glistened in the camera flash” (42). The photo was a beautiful moment and I don’t think I will ever forget that smile on her face. 

    As fate would have it, somehow I ended up at her house one night so her brother could get some rest out on the couch. I didn’t know it then but she was actively dying and I was there holding her hand:

    “As I tried to settle back in the chair to keep her company while her brother rested, Hannah stared straight up at the ceiling. A tear started out of the corner of her right eye and then she looked over at me. I could see that she was terrified. She opened and turned her right hand toward me. I placed mine in hers and patted her lovingly with my other hand doing my best to give her my most comforting and sympathetic smile. Our eyes were locked onto each other, hers filled with fear, and mine attempting to be strong. “It’s going to be alright Hannah. I’m here with you and I’m not going anywhere. Close your eyes and try to rest.” She never did. We sat there for at least three hours locked in that embrace with her eyes going from mine, to the ceiling, around the room, then back to mine again. Everytime our eyes met I smiled at her trying my best to comfort this woman I did not know (45).”

    When it came time to choose a song from my playlist to represent Hannah, it was an easy choice because of that photo of her. I have always loved Al Stewart’s “Year of the Cat” from 1976. Al Stewart is a fascinating Scottish born musician. If you get a chance, watch some interviews he has done. He is a genuinely down to earth guy that you could hang out with at a local pub. According to the video “Al Stewart talks Year of the Cat” you can find on Youtube, he grew up wanting to be in rock and roll like Duanne Eddy who inspired him to pick up the guitar but felt his early rock and roll work was awful until Bob Dylan came along and “saved his life.” He says “He (Dylan) couldn’t play and he couldn’t sing either but he could do things with lyrics that were magical.” He set off to be a folk singer and found success in the late 60’s and early 70’s. He was later influenced by Paul Simon as well. He eventually found himself on tour in America supporting Linda Ronstadt. He began work on what would become “Year of the Cat.” He based it off a warm up riff his piano player kept playing. The record company didn’t like his first version about a british comedian who had committed suicide and they asked him to rewrite the lyrics. His girlfriend at the time had a book on Vietnamese Astrology and the page was open to a chapter called “The Year of the Cat.” He thought to himself, “that to me looks like a song title.” Casablanca was on the television and he “started playing with it.” The rest is history. He felt the song wasn’t that great so he made it the last track on the album but the song was a hit and resonated with listeners. 

    I have always loved the song. Its opening piano riff that takes its time to build up to the moment is a masterclass in pop musical set up. Modern music with its short attention span desperately trying to catch the listener’s attention within the first 15 seconds could learn from him. When it finally kicks in to the drums, bass, and electric guitar it has a perfect feel and flow. And I have always loved its sound: crisp, clean, and pure. It sounds like a less perfectly engineered Steely Dan recording, which is not a putdown in any way. By the time he sings “On a morning from a Bogart movie” you realize that this is truly something special. But what really gets me is when he says what I think is one of the best lines from any pop song to ever describe a woman:

    She comes out of the sun

    In a silk dress running

    Like a watercolor in the rain

    Don’t bother asking for explanations

    She’ll just tell you that she came

    In the year of the cat 

    That line is mesmerizing. “Out of the sun in a silk dress running like a watercolor in the rain.” The alliteration sun and silk…the rhyme of sun and run…the image of a watercolor in the rain. Dang. It’s Shakesperian. It’s as perfect a line as I’ve ever heard in pop music. In my text I wrote “I don’t have any idea who Al Stewart was describing in those lines but it should have been Hannah in that photo” (42). 

    The ladies group at my mom’s church back in Lexington, Ky, read my book for their book club and I had the privilege to go back home there in March for their meeting. One of the women asked me which death was the hardest on me. Without a hesitation I said “Hannah…it was like watching my own sister die.” At the end of the chapter, I wrote:

    People come in and out of our lives for all kinds of reasons. I think Hannah came into mine to truly personalize it for me. When Mr. Miller died, it was simply a culmination of a life well lived and there was comfort in knowing that he was at rest. Hannah wasn’t much older than me; she could have been my sister. Her death felt more tragic. In the world of hospice, you start to see death so much that it just becomes part of the job but even after all this time, I’m still not over her. I hope I never will be. 

    I can honestly say that sitting here writing this, I’m still not over her. Her sister-in-law was right. I would have loved to have known her before the brief time that I did. But I can honestly say that her death was one that influenced me to begin writing these stories. It’s not much, but it is her legacy and that makes me happy.