Southbound on I-94 near Hwy. 158 in Kenosha County, Wisconsin

January 25, 2024: Southbound on I-94 near Hwy. 158 in Kenosha County, Wisconsin.

Another Week: Number 57

by | January 28, 2024

Amy died two Tuesdays ago, and even though we had been inching toward this conclusion for nine months — or ten years, or even forty-two years — the sudden finality is shocking. All of her stuff is here, but she has vanished. The one person I could look to for understanding and validation can never again be reached by phone or text. She left her phone behind.

It’s interesting to observe how my mind grapples with this enormous void. Cautiously, it alternates between various angles, taking small bites here and there from the edges, digesting them, and weaving a new reality bit by bit. I remember how wonderful she was and my eyes start flooding with tears, then I turn to some chore to put things in order.

One sense I have is of a bubble popping.

Over the last nine months, Amy’s illness gradually became more and more constricting. Walking a mile wiped her out. Then she was housebound. Then she could no longer climb the stairs. Then leaving the living room was too exhausting. And then she could not get out of bed.

I was right there with her.

Now those restraints have snapped. She is no longer trapped, and suddenly things beyond our living room are no longer out of my reach. I have been to my mom’s place a couple of times. Replacements have been ordered for the broken window blinds upstairs. One day soon, I may even go for the walk everyone has been advising me to take.

There have been a few laughs now and then. One thing that got me was a line in a story about the pastor of the Victorious Grace Church in Colorado accused of fleecing his flock through a cryptocurrency scam. It seems that “hundreds of thousands of dollars was used for ‘a home remodel that the Lord told us to do.’”

I had to stop myself from texting the link to my wife.



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Jackie DeShannon

With some regularity, a passing reference will brush against my consciousness and I’ll follow it on a deep dive through Google and Wikipedia and YouTube.

This happened Saturday morning in bed, when an Instacart commercial that TuneIn has recently added played for the umpteenth time and sent me searching.

The spot — which I cannot locate online — features piano with a vocalist singing Instacart-related lyrics that have awkwardly been crammed into the 1969 hit “Put a Little Love in Your Heart.” For the ad, “heart” becomes “cart.”

The original song was written and sung by Jackie DeShannon. I remember hearing it a lot back then, and I recall seeing her on The Johnny Cash Show, which I watched religiously every week. I also remember “What the World Needs Now Is Love,” the Bacharach-David hit, but did not realize that it too was sung by DeShannon — not Dionne Warwick, who turned it down.

But this is only the tip of the Jackie DeShannon iceberg. Her Wikipedia bio also notes “When You Walk in the Room,” “Bette Davis Eyes,” her attending high school in Batavia, Illinois, and hosting her own radio show in Aurora, Illinois at age 13.

She dated Elvis Presley. She toured with The Beatles and Ry Cooder and wrote songs with Jimmy Page, whose “Tangerine” was inspired by their breakup.

She is now 82.



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