I wanted to hear a concert last night, and a shelf of DVDs were handy.  I reached for one I knew well: Chris de Burgh’s Road to Freedom.  Before her death in 2014, my dear wife Jody and I had watched it several times.

I remember our wine-coloured leather couch and our positions on it.  I’d be sitting at one end and Jody would be lying down, her feet in my lap.  We both loved the rubbing.  As familiar songs danced across the screen yesterday, I remembered our love.

Chris de Burgh evokes love … with his ballads and high ringing tenor voice.  So pure.  He stood alone on stage, accompanied only by his guitar and piano.  There were tears among the audience members.  Lighters and tiny glow sticks were waving in the dark, before our world of cell phones.

At one point, Chris launched into a medley of his songs.  Wearing a headset, he and his guitar came down from the stage and walked amid the multiple beloveds.  He got down on one knee to sing to an older woman.  He put his hand on the shoulder of a physically disabled young man.  And he smiled at everyone who was close to his path.

I knew what his final song would be: a soaring anthem called The Snows of New York.  The audience knew it as well.  Many of them sang.

You have always been such a good friend to me
Through the thunder and the rain
And when you’re feeling lost in the snows of New York
Lift your heart and think of me

I think of you, Jodiette … every day