Monday, May 11, 2020 - Loss During the Virus

I want to write about the experience of losing someone during this virus time. I don’t need to get maudlin and sad, but I want to talk about the experience a little bit if you’ll walk with me a while. My wife Jen’s dad passed on Wednesday while we were with him at his nursing facility. We hadn’t been allowed to visit for the past two months due to quarantine at all nursing facilities. We knew he would pass sometime fairly soon, but when we heard on that morning that he was not waking up and was unresponsive we were very surprised - having just talked to him the day before when he was pretty sharp. Of course, we had to take very strict precautions to enter his facility, and while we were there we needed to keep social distancing, wear masks, and have only brief interactions with staff whom we had grown to know and love. So we ended up feeling a lot of strange emotions. Of course, there was shock and grief, but because of the masks and restrictions we really couldn’t express them for fear of spreading or catching the virus. So there were no hugs or long expressions of gratitude and fondness for the staff that we were feeling.  We had to bottle them up inside us. The next day we packed up his stuff and cleared his room, and again the regular feelings had to be squelched for the most part. Then normally you’d expect to have some sort of funeral or gathering of remembrance, but because of the virus and having to limit group size we won’t be able have anything but a few people at his graveside. It just puts a damper on everything you’d like to say and feel. And beyond our family situation the virus brings up many emotions for all of us that limit our normal expressions of emotions this year, and I think this is at the heart of many angers and fears we’re seeing expressed around our country and world. We’re all frustrated by the inability to express ourselves and have our normal freedom of movement and life. Because of this people are lashing out at each other in families and in general. It is a very strange thing - like a mean-spirited ogre who stalks the land and controls our every move. Our own family death just brings it into sharper focus. Are you going through this kind of mixed emotion too in your situation? Reach out - our togetherness apart can help.  

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What have I been up to? 

I recorded a few more public domain songs for my public domain YouTube channel last week. I hope that people are listening. I’m not very good at figuring out the charts to see listenership. Here’s the address if you want to check it out - youtube.com/channel/UCLYdZkZ0isWlc9wv1QsKutQ/. 

I played a couple online shows for my facilities. I’m doing very few of these since connectivity at senior facilities is mostly non-existent.  

I recorded a fun Mother’s Day show for Cuchara Chapel as part of the service that was put online Sunday. You can view it if you’d like at cucharachapel.org. I wrote a new song for mothers for this show called “How Did You Know?” that turned out very well. I posted this song up on my Facebook pages and also on my regular YouTube channel - youtu.be/i33NmphkKdg. 

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What am I up to this week? 

Again I’m recording more public domain songs. I’ll run out at some point, but until I do I’m enjoying making these available. When I figure it out I’ll post some newer songs there as well. 

I’m also recording some mini-concerts for some of my facilities to use. These won’t be posted publicly, but I’m making them available to facilities.  

Sunday evening 7-8:15 mountain time I’ll be doing my weekly Facebook Live Concert. I’ll be concentrating on requests for the most part instead of doing a theme for this one. I’m still considering doing some theme nights in the future since everyone was interested in that. You can tune in on my Facebook page and also on my website: 

facebook.com/tom.munch 
tommunch.com/photos-videos 

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What is coming? 

I’m still thinking about a marathon concert. I didn’t do much last week since we were consumed with dealing with our loss, but I’ll get back to it this week. 

I’m still waiting on my new album to arrive. It will probably be available online before I have CD’s in hand. I’ll let you know. It’s all licensed and ready to go. I signed up for stamps.com so I can ship from the house instead of going to the post office for orders at least during the initial launch.  

I’m thinking more about theme-night concerts on Facebook, and I think these might be better done on a different night than Sundays. I have several groups of friends from Philmont and the old Don K guest ranch as well as other places that I may do special shows for. I even did a Zoom show for one of my facilities that worked really well this week, so I may utilize that service too in the future.  

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That’s it for this week. I appreciate your thoughts on how you are dealing with the mixed emotions of regular life combined with the virus fears and precautions. Please take care of yourself and let me know how you are doing. I appreciate you.  

Best always, 

Tom 

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Details this week: 

Who:  Tom Munch 
What:  playing and singing a Facebook Live Concert from my home 
Where:  facebook.com/tom.munch and tommunch.com/photos-videos 
When:  Sunday, May 17, 7-8:15 pm mountain time

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