Memories in Music

My sister Lizette was a brilliant psychologist who changed the world before she left it. Before that, however, she was my best friend, my first friend, my forever friend.

This is a collection of the music that we loved and shared - quite literally. Our record collection belonged to both of us and since we lived in the same room, when one of us played music the other one listened. This was years before "ear phones" and the ability to shut out the world and disappear into your phone. We played our music together. We talked about it, argued about it and loved it together. 

Music is hooked to memory, there is no doubt, and these particular songs have the ability to bring her back to me in a way nothing else does. They are full of inside jokes, secrets and memories of a time when anything was possible. Those of you who might enjoy a trip back to 1967 - here it is. In the summer of 1967 our family spent two weeks in San Francisco. Who could have imagined that something so exciting and extravagant, so weird and wild would someday be history. One of the first things we did was each borrow a beautiful white magnolia from a bush in Golden Gate Park. We took a couple of bobby-pins and secured them in each others hair. Our very conservative father looked at us, shook his head and said, "Do you really have to do that?" We looked at each other and then said, in unison, "Yes."  When we did something, we always tended to do it all the way. We went to San Francisco with flowers in our hair. We double dated. We stayed up too late talking and laughing. We told each other things we didn't tell anyone else. On one of the worst days of my life, I came home to find she had left a package for me on the bed. Inside were the 100% real, original "Love Beads" that she bought in San Francisco in 1967. The note with them said, "These are yours now. In the end, love is the only thing that matters. I love you more than anything. I always will." I could never have imagined that one day I would lay them on her coffin. 

I listened to all of these songs before posting them. They make me laugh and remember. Like the Beatles and my brilliant sister said, "all you need is love." Love lasts forever and she is still with me. She always will be.