Remembering Tom
Break it up
On Saturday at 2:39 in the morning we lost Tom Verlaine. Words cannot express my sorrow for the loss nor the joy for having known him. All who loved his music may wish to play his records. I am offering Break it Up. It’s the song that Tom and I composed for Horses in 1975. The lyrics reflect a dream I had of the death and imagined resurrection of Jim Morrison. Tom’s uniquely beautiful and expressive guitar work can be heard throughout.
Today on my Instagram I wrote that grieving is not an affliction but a privilege. And so I believe. Wishing everyone a peaceful Sunday perhaps filled with music.
Thank you for this beautiful song, Patti. I spent all night and much of today listening to Tom Verlaine and exchanging Television songs on a family chat with my three grown children and my former husband. He was and always will be beloved in my family.
I am sorry for your loss, Patti, and for the loss to Jesse and Jackson. You have each expressed your grief so lovingly, honoring and saluting him as you do all whom you have loved who have passed on. What I always say of you is that you understand that being a friend, a wife, a daughter, a sister, doesn’t end when someone moves on. Some aspect of our duty to whom we love then just begins. You carry out the privilege of grieving and keeping alive those you love better than anyone I know. Thirty years ago, you taught me how, and it has helped me to bear sorrows more than anything.
You put it beautifully that grieving is not an affliction but a privilege. Thank you for teaching that by example.
I have the wish to hand you something, Patti: a leaf, a petal, a stone. Because I can’t, I offer Emily Dickinson. Our lives have closed far more than twice, but the feeling is the same:
My life closed twice before its close—
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me
So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
#96
With love, and a guiding light,
Robin
Late last night, when I heard that Tom Verlaine had passed, I immediately thought of you, Patti. Losing a loved one is so difficult. I'm sorry for your loss. We will all mourn the loss of his creative, frenetic, beautiful talent. Thank you for the wisdom of "grieving is not an affliction but a privilege". I recently honored the 7 year anniversary of my wife's passing. And, while it still pains me every day, I feel fortunate to have had the great grace and privilege of having loved her and been loved by her. Grief is the hardest part of life, and yet we are so lucky to feel love so deeply.