John Prine died

I woke up this morning to a message from my mother about how she was devastated to hear of the passing of the late, always great, John Prine. I'm sure I had heard Prine's music while growing up--- a record while Mom was cooking, or while Dad was working on the model trains in the living room. He has such a familiar voice that you all probably think you've heard him before, when you hear him. But until you find the first song that punches you with its lyrics you haven't heard John Prine.

I was watching late night TV a few years ago, and the Colbert Report came on. The guest singer was John Prine. To me he just looked like an old man, but he began to belt out "How Lucky" and I immediately fell in love and fell in nostalgia. Wow. What a way with lyrics. It's no wonder that my parents, who lived through so many different changes and movements and wars related to him so much. He was your next door neighbour asking for a cigarette. Singing on his porch about a floppy dancer at a bar.

My mother's message made me so sad. She is seeing the best of her generation go one by one, this time because of COVID-19, but either way there is always a reason. They aren't young anymore. This sentiment pegs my heart because it makes losing them become oh so real. My mother lost a piece of her childhood. My dad drank with the guy in a bar after a concert in Bryn Mawr, Pa, on night. To see them with a constant worry of what's next to go on their face makes me worry as well. How long until I wake up to a sad message. But this time not from Mom or Dad.

One of my biggest fears is that time is passing by so quickly. I, in fact, do not have never ending time left with them. And today they lost a piece of themselves and I lost someone who always made me think of them. I lost a piece of them.

A true legend turned angel.