Head Tale

It’s always ironic than when my life is the busiest – work, home, family – both immediate and extended, camping, volunteer stuff, medical appointments, helping my parents, etc. etc. etc. – is when I’m most likely to end up not doing daily blog posts (I frequently miss a day but then do it the following morning.  But I should probably get that reversed and *proactively* write tomorrow’s post today so I’m always ahead by one.  But I sometimes like the ability to be timely with the day’s news or whatever.)

Anyhow, that’s neither here nor there other than to say I haven’t posted since last Music Monday while a busy week has gone by in between.

But it’s also a reminder to appreciate the busyness, the stress, the time with family and friends.  Because  heard from my folks last week that a woman I knew growing up had passed away from surgery complications after living with MS for most of her life.

It’s that small town thing where we’re all connected – Renee’s dad was a music teacher and even played guitar at my sister’s wedding ceremony.  Her mom worked in an office I visited twice a year (or more often if I had a cavity!) ;-).  Mr. Carleton also taught English though I never had him which is too bad as he was just a brilliant guy all around – one of if not my favourite teachers of all-time.

I happened to have a random conversation with Renee’s older sister just a few weeks ago and got an update on Renee’s health among other things – she talked about her sister’s health not being great but also her constant positivity and optimism.  Obviously she had no clue of what was about to happen a few weeks later and it’s an eerie conversation in retrospect.

It’s weird that my most vivid memory of Renee is her singing this song solo at some band concert in high school and thinking how brave she was to stand alone in that spotlight.

“More Than Words” – Extreme