Bill Morrissey passes and it makes me want to cry.

When I was 11 my mother played Bill Morrissey's Standing Eight on repeat the entire summer in her Suburban. It was an age where you spend a lot of your time being driven around: to the pool, to friend's houses, out to dinner... so the tracks became our family theme songs in a way. We took the Suburban to Nantucket and she continued to play every track, over and over, as we drove between beaches, out to lunch, and home again. When I listen to the album now I can still remember the feeling of being 11 years old on our way home, the sun setting, dusting my sandy feet into the cloth seats of her car.

The album followed me through adolescence and into boarding school where I can remember playing it my first night away from home. My father referred to the last track as "the world's saddest song" and I used that line on every girl I met to differentiate myself from other boys. I played it on repeat during nights of insomnia before exams and in college while writing my senior thesis. When I lived abroad in Italy I played the album with my eyes closed and pictured myself back home. Just recently, while lying in the hospital bed, I decided to play some of his tracks after Lyssa left to get us pizza and began to think about him- where he was, what he was doing and when I'd finally get to see him play.