Our House (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) - day 2

Well, up until earlier in October 2020, Our House, by classic rock collab-group Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, was always just a pleasant background song you’d hear on Lite-FM or overhead at Lowe’s. And it still always will be; for me, however, it’s now become my anthem for missing my beautiful little guy.

You all know I am one to dwell on those who’ve gone before us, those I’ve personally lost and who’ve left a profound emptiness in my huge but fractured heart. I can’t help how I am. I am moved by these losses and though it’s perceived as dwelling, it’s honestly my way of coping and therefore celebrating them. I have lost parents, siblings, friends, and even pets. But I haven’t felt this feeling since 1981 when I bid a bitter, final farewell to my constant companion Cheri Amour, she who was with me since I was a small, small boy, when this very song was actually on the radio charts.

When we took Little Frankie in to the vet’s office that night, I remember Chris trying to console me with all the wonderful things we gave him in his life, and all the happiness he returned in his aloof little weirdo ways. Chris asked, comically, if I were going to find a song to wear out that would remind me of Therm (his Jelicle name); behind sniffles of non-stop sobbing, I laughed and said I didn’t have any songs that reminded me of him. And then, a few days later, we heard this song and Chris sang it to me flippantly, the way I’d sung it to Little Frankie, who I sometimes referred to as my ‘mouse’. That was it: the floodgates splashed opened.

When Little Frankie would sunbathe outside and I’d meander out with coffee to go sit with him and start my Saturday morning, I’d annoyingly disrupt his slumber by singing this song to him: “Our mouse is a very very very fine mouse. A cute cat in the yard, life used to be so hard, now everything is easy ‘cause of me, and ah, la la la la la la la….” He would maybe look at me and roll over, perhaps to say please go away, hooman.  Or perhaps it was to say, “please keep singing to me, silly human who loves me so…”

I literally just ran through a whole box of Kleenex. And I’ll never hear this song the same way again. I hope it’s not while shopping at Lowe’s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKYjUn-SBcg