Warning: Despite my insistence that this blog is all about graveyards and dead people, it’s really about family history. This story is about part of my family, and it is part of my children’s history, so even though they are still alive to tell this story themselves, I’m going to tell it now to keep it from becoming untold.

My baby boy turns twenty this weekend.  I haven’t been able to get him out of my mind because he lives nearly three hundred miles away. I have been too ill to travel for the last year or so. I’ve been having car problems too. So has Jake. I miss him terribly, but he promises to come and visit soon, and I can’t wait. Yes, this is the story of a boy and his sister. I’m getting to that–I promise.

But first, a little about a boy and his music. I usually begin my day by listening to uplifting music, and today was no different. I  began by listening to “Bring Him Home” from Les Miserables, but that got me thinking of sons in general, which got me thinking of Jake. Again. And then I began wondering why I hadn’t listened to anything from Waiting for Compromise lately. In fact, I’ve been avoiding it.

You see, Jake is the lead singer in a band (Waiting for Compromise). Or am I supposed to say was? I don’t know. He is one of three extremely talented singer/songwriters. Two  are brothers, and then there’s Jake. Jake moved to the other end of the state for a full-time job about a year and a half ago, and the two brothers have done a pretty good job of keeping their band going despite the fact that Jake is no longer around. In fact, they’ve even released their first album. Jake wasn’t able to be around for most of the recordings, so he doesn’t sing in many of them. But this one, “Morning’s Coming Soon,” brought me to tears:

Jake does sing in this one. He’s the crazy blonde always up front and in the middle. It’s not the song itself that makes me cry, but the video montage, the fact that the boys are separated, and the lyrics. They probably did it on purpose just to make me cry. Well, it worked, so I’ve been avoiding their music for a while. To be fair though, Jake tells me it makes him cry too. (more…)