Soundtracks - Isn't Life Strange

I'm jumping ahead in my soundtracks here, but this seems to be the appropriate song for this moment in time.

I need to say that not every song of my soundtracks is a song i love, or that I'd want on my ipod, and this song really qualifies as one of those. The Moody Blues did some really great songs, but this one from Seventh Sojourn isn't especially well sung or played, and its kind of a syrupy mess . . . but it transports me to a time and place every time I hear it.

In high school, I turned out to be more of an artist type than a jock. Not that I didn't have the physical ability or skills (I was an all-star shortstop in my Babe Ruth league), but I just got involved in artistic types of pursuits. I had a good friend, Nancy who was dating a wrestler with whom I also became friends. Our wrestling team had its own set of cheerleaders called the Wrestlerettes and Nancy was one of them, so I also got to know, superficially, the other Wrestlerettes. One of them was a girl named Marilynn Martin, or Marti for short. A really nice girl who really didn't come across as "stuck-up" or snobbish. She and I had a couple conversations, though nothing ever in depth.

After graduation, Marti became engaged to her high school boyfriend, a guy named Gary, from the wrestling team. I do not know any of the details, but late one night as Gary was driving her home, they had a car accident and Marti was killed.

The death of someone I hardly knew at the age of 19 hit me harder than I can explain. Perhaps it was the moment when I realized I was mortal or that life was really fragile, but I can remember going to the viewing and seeing this beautiful young woman lying in a casket and feeling a strange and surreal emptyness, like the fabric of my own life had been rent and things would not ever be the same.

This song by the Moody Blues played in my head as I drove from the funeral home, and it reminds me of Marti everytime I hear it.

But as I reach this stage of my life, I begin to think about the people I know now, and how we NEVER know whether we'll see them again when they drive away. So when I hear this song, I think how each and every one of our departures from this life will be surrounded with tears and saddness, but that life will go on.

I grieve for those friends and love ones facing their mortality or the mortality of ones they love, but I hope to remember this . . . that there will be time for tears and saddness, for now I want to revel in my life, and those I love. And I will go home tonight and kiss my wife and think about how wonderful life is that she is here with me, and I will not worry about tomorrow, because it will come and go no matter what I do. For David and Tricia, I send my prayers and my sincere hope that they have many, many more moments to share . . . and who really knows, because Isn't Life Strange?

Isn’t life strange
A turn of the page
Can read like before
Can we ask for more?
Each day passes by
How hard man will try?
The sea will not wait
You know it makes me want to cry, cry, cry -

Wished I could be in your heart
To be one with your love
Wished I could be in your eyes
Looking back there you were,
and here we are. . .