Messages

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Half-way up the steps

From: Diana
Email: dmebers@aol.com
Remote Name: 198.81.20.173
Date: 06-Oct-2002
Time: 01:08 PM

Comments

I’ve been standing just outside the porch, listening to your conversations for the past week. Not feeling like I belonged up there with you all, feeling like I was intruding on people who knew each other well and loved each other even more. I didn’t want to impose myself on a sad and private time for you all. Then I thought that I was being rude to just listen to you. So here I am half-way up the steps, because I miss Mickey, too.

As I read your posts, I see that my experience with Mickey was not unlike yours. I saw him perform only once, here in Eugene, Oregon at a benefit concert at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts. He sat alone on the stage with just his guitar and his presence and his voice filled the entire room. I don't know how he did it. It was magic. I hope he knew how special he was. I felt inadequate trying to tell him (surely he must know), so I never did. I probably should have. I wish I had. But, in reading your messages to Mickey before he passed away, I know you told him. I hope he knew.

Mickey was such a kind, gracious man who was so gentle and giving. I could never say he was a friend, because I hardly knew him, yet I feel like I have known him all my life and am so saddened by his passing.

It has been healing for me to read all of the conversations on the porch this past week. They have made me smile, they have made me cry, and they make me wish I could have spent more time with him. I remember a day when a friend of his took me to visit Mickey. Not long into our visit, he got out a yellow pad and sang some songs for us that he had been working on. I felt so honored that he would do that in front of a stranger. Now I'm reading lots of messages about his yellow pads, and they make me smile.

My deepest sympathy to his family. You are all being so brave and wonderful, just as Mickey would have wanted you to be. I appreciate your sharing your thoughts as you step out onto the porch from time to time. It helps us, not just in what we get from it, but also because we can see the healing begin with you, too.

I am very sad that he is gone, but what a legacy he left to us. None of us will ever be the same for having experienced the magic of Mickey Newbury.

God bless all of you, and thank you for letting me sit a spell.

Diana

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