I write songs and have been for about twenty years. I've never been in a band or sold my music or anything, I just really enjoy writing songs. About eighteen years ago as I was learning about songwriting and learning about greats, I was spending a fair amount of time with my mom. I was twenty or so. Anyway, she was a big Lyle Lovett fan. I was listening to Willie Nelson's Pack and Lefty song one night. I got to reading online about that song and discovered Townes van Zandt wrote it. So I end getting into his music and realized a song of his was sung by Lyle Lovett. Flying Shoes is the name of the song. So I told my mom of my new discovery of Townes. She preferred Lyle's version, she want a fan of Townes's singing. I liked his songwriting. So, a little friendly argument ensues, the kind that brings you closer to something, not forget apart. It's the closest and friendliest I ever remember my mom and I being, when I was older that is. During those weeks of discussing/arguing music, she mentioned she wanted that song played at her funeral, Flying Shoes. That she considered it her favorite song.

Fast forward ten years: my mom goes to the hospital because of something called c. diff. There's a much longer word but you can look it up. Long story short here, she dies. Wasn't actually c .diff. but rather Dr error during routine procedure. 25 minutes of cpr while myself, dad and wife watched from the hall in the ICU. Then a coma for five or six days, to no chance of recovery and we had to make the decision. She was 56 and a very healthy person. I'm getting off topic but the point is, it was tramatic and unexpected.

We played Flying Shoes at her funeral. For months after a couldn't play it (myself on guitar) as I often had. There's another song that I've often played alongside it called "Come Tomorrow", another Townes song. It began to remind me of her more than Flying Shoes. The songs not even about losing someone to death , rather the expected loss of a lover, but little things in the song. She died in late August, so it was sad times up through Christmas and song just really reminds me. All the leaves...