Tom... seven years ago today

Tom, my Irish twin, passed away seven years ago today. Each year seems to get harder as time goes by. We would both have been 69 years old for a couple of months before I would move on to 70. 

It hurts to think back on that day in 2014. We arrived at Betsy's house after a long day on the road. When she came out of the house to greet us I knew something was wrong. She told me Tom had passed away earlier in the day. It's hard now to imagine the shock of that moment but at the same time we all knew how sickly Tom had become over the past few years before then. I had just talked with him a couple of days before and we made arrangements to go out with him at one of his favorite restaurants in downtown Philly.

The last time I had been out with Tom we had gone to one of his favorite bars on Germantown Avenue... The Mermaid Lane Tavern. He mostly liked it because for some reason people were still allowed to smoke there. No food served and it was considered a cigar bar. Well, we stayed there for one beer and then I insisted on moving up the avenue to another place with no smoke. No problem. We sat in the bar patio and he was able to smoke. It's no wonder that smoking killed him.

I could sit here in our backyard cabana room all night drinking some beers, listening to some great old music and writing about Tom.