The second death. To think that you died and no one would remember you.
The bride waits here,” she said, running her hands along her hair, taking in her image but seeming to drift away. “This is the moment you think about what you’re doing. Who you’re choosing. Who you will love. If it’s right, Eddie, this can be such a wonderful moment.
And, as is usually the fate with bands, most of them will break up – through distance, differences, divorce, or death.
Lost love is still love, Eddie. It just takes a different form, that’s all. You can’t hold their hand... You can’t tousle their hair... But when those senses weaken another one comes to life... Memory... Memory becomes your partner. You hold it... you dance with it... Life has to end, Eddie... Love doesn’t.
Morrie went to his funeral. He came home depressed. “What a waste,” he said. “All those people saying all those wonderful things, and Irv never got to hear any of it.
Here is what I know of love. It changes the way you treat me. I feel it in your hands. Your fingers. Your compositions. The sudden rush of peppy phrases, major sevenths, melody lines that resolve neatly and sweetly, like a valentine tucked in an envelope. Humans grow dizzy from new affection, and young Frankie was already dizzy when he and the mysterious girl descended from that tree.
Do you know how they brainwash people? They repeat something over and over. And that’s what we do in this country. Owning things is good. More money is good. More property is good. More commercialism is good. More is good. More is good. We repeat it – and have it repeated to us – over and over until nobody bothers to even think otherwise. The average person is so fogged up by all this, he has no perspective on what’s really important anymore.
Love comes when you least expect it. Love comes when you most need it. Love comes when you are ready to receive it or can no longer deny it. These are common expressions that hold varying truths of love.
Everyone joins a band in this life. And what you play always affects someone. Sometimes, it affects the world. Frankie’s symphony ends. And so, at last, we rest.
Time passed. Like flakes shaken in a snow globe, the lives of those involved in the tragedy settled slowly to the ground, not in the same spots but in new pockets of peace.
But daughters have their own lives. You can’t smother them. She’ll get married. Have children.
It’s very simple. As you grow, you learn more.
And a man without memories is just a shell.
If you believe it, you don’t need proof.
Just because you see things straight doesn’t mean you see them in time.
But all endings are also beginnings.
There was a sermon where he brought a squash and a piece of wood, then slammed each with a knife to show that things which grow quickly are often more easily destroyed than those which take a long time.
They were there, or would be there, because of the simple, mundane things Eddie had done in his life, the accidents he had prevented, the rides he had kept safe, the unnoticed turns he had affected every day.
Hopeless change be contagious, but hope can be too. And there is no medicine to match it.
But none of us are assured of tomorrow. It’s what we do with today that makes an impact.