Dec 6 1980

My mother was a winter bride forty-one years ago today.

Annette and Les took their honeymoon a few months after the wedding, and they were already living apart. The playhouse wasn’t getting along. And then a telltale sign – perhaps confirming what they already knew – my father’s wedding ring cracked on their honeymoon, right through the engraving on the inside of the word “Always.” Years later, the ring will be given a second chance, repaired and worn by one of my brothers as his wedding ring.

Every Christmas, I hang a beautiful crystal ornament engraved with 1980 on my tree to celebrate their friendship and their union. Happy Anniversary to my parents.

Nov 11 2021

My dad got us a piano the year he died. So when I started to learn to play as a little girl, I imagined the piano notes and music to be like a language that he could hear wherever he was, like he got us the piano so we could still communicate. I have never really outgrown that thought.

Here is “Blackbird” for my dad, Les Barr, 8/21/48 – 11/11/91. Recorded for the 30th anniversary of his death on the same piano he gave me so I could still reach him.

As I listen back to this recording, I can hear a faint bird call right in the middle. A reply from him because why not and who’s to say? I am always looking and listening for him, and over thirty years, I’ve gotten pretty good at it.