As a child his music comforted me. As a teen his music moved me. As a college music major his music compelled me. As a young adult his music called me. As a woman his music completes me.
Happy birthday, Herr Mozart. Ich liebe dich für immer und ewig und drei Tagen.
I’m not sure why you have decided that after four years of having no contact with my children that it was necessary or even appropriate for you to do so. In fact, if I’m not mistaken, I believe that you have a DHS order prohibiting you from any contact with them. But, since Lauren is no longer a minor, I guess you thought that she was once again, fair game.
Pathetic really, that a forty-some-year-old woman would find it necessary and/or amusing to continue to harass and abuse a 19-year-old girl who has done nothing but move on with her life, (after enduring four years of abuse from you), and put herself on the road to success and happiness. It speaks loudly to the kind of person you are and to the fact that after all the experiences of the past and all the abuse that my children endured at your hand, you’ve done nothing to rehabilitate yourself, nor have you learned a thing. It speaks even more loudly of Lauren, 
who through the strength of her character, has endured, persevered, moved-past, and conquered the abuse you so cruelly wielded in her direction for four years, and has grown into a beautiful, intelligent, courageous, compassionate, loving, and successful young woman. Lauren graduated with a 4.0 GPA, with top honors from her high school, last May, and is now a foreign exchange student with Rotary International in Brittany, France. After she returns home in June she will begin college at the University of Oklahoma where she will double major in French and Spanish with a goal towards a career in the field of International Relations and/or International Business. The fact that you find it necessary to seek her out and attack her on her weblog, when she has done nothing to you only brings to light how pathetic an individual you really are, as well as exposes your jealousy of her, and points directly back at you.
You know, I really never received the opportunity to tell you exactly what I think of you after you abused my children and verbally assassinated the characters of my partner and her son. The damage you did to my family was extensive and the wounds deep. Fortunately, in the nearly four years since my children have been back with me, much healing has taken place, and the damage you inflicted has been repaired, albeit the scars remain. Your manipulations, lies, emotional & physical abuse, fear tactics, and verbal attacks nearly did them in, and it is beyond me how they held up underneath it all. Again, it is a testimony to their character, and to the raising they had before they were exposed to you. I fully understand that what you did was done out of your own pain and abusive past, but it is beyond me how you could be so self-centered and turned-in not to realize that inflicting abuse on others because you were abused is not an acceptable way of dealing with your own pain. In fact, I know you know it’s not ok. But you did it anyway, and that, quite frankly is inexcusable. So no, I will not let you off the hook here by allowing you to plead innocent because you’re an abuse victim yourself. You’re an adult and have been for a long time now, and it’s time for you to grow up and deal with your past, be accountable for your own actions and quit abusing those around you. Get help, Kathy. You need it badly, and god knows your children need it.
I close this with a warning that if you continue to stalk and harass any of my three children on the web, I will not hesitate to inform DHS, for two of my children are still minors. And I will also remind you that internet stalking is a crime, and I will not hesitate to prosecute you accordingly.
Go now, and get the help you need.
As I've written here before, I grew up in a home that was filled with beautiful music. Although my parents were not professional musicians, they loved and valued good music and our home was constantly filled with it. I believe that the stereo was turned on more than the television, and the music we listened to ranged from religious choral music and light jazz to the classics.
One of the classical composers to whom I was exposed from an early age was the Russian pianist and composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff. My parents owned a set of piano concerti by the Neo-Romantic composer, and after I acquired my own stereo, I sneaked the collection up to my room and listened to it for hours upon end. I would plop myself into my lime green bean bag chair, and put the record on, plug in the headphones, lay back, and allow the music to take me away into my own dream world.
I have featured here, a section of the Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme from Paganini, featuring the 18th variation, which is probably one of the most voluptuous, passionate, lyrical, and romantic passages found in any piece of music. Played here by Russian pianist, Mikhail Pletnev, this is music, that if you've never had the opportunity to hear, you must. You won't be disappointed. Put on your headphones, close your eyes, and just listen...
Say the name, Freddie Mercury, and most people know immediately who you mean. Out of the closet, when being "out" wasn't cool, Freddie Mercury, and his band, "Queen" were the beginnings of the gay revolution in Rock & Roll. Unapologetically homosexual, Freddie Mercury refused to be held back by the dictates of an industry which said that it was okay to be gay, just don't talk about it. Instead, his music was a celebration of who he was and began the push towards the acceptance of homosexuals in the industry as well as society in general. Tragically, the world lost this great talent in 1991 to AIDS related pneumonia.
When I was a teenager, I heard Queen for the first time at a friend's house. My parents didn't allow "such music" in our home, so I had never really been exposed to them, but once I was exposed, I was hooked. Their Bohemian Rhapsody has always been my favorite, as it is really a mini rock opera and contains many classical elements of music.
To all my friends who sent me best wishes in 2007, or promises of good luck if I forwarded something: IT DIDN'T WORK! So instead, in 2008, please send money, chocolate, or gas vouchers.
Thank-you.
Everyone has experienced hearing an old song on the radio and having the memories flood in of a time and place in their life when that particular song was the "background music" to their life, so throughout the month of January, I thought it would be fun to delve into the 70's which were my high school years, and bring back some of those songs that comprised the soundtrack of my life.
I have to begin with Barry Manilow. I admit it, I was, (and still am), a big Manilow fan. His music resonated with me as a teenager, and thirty years later, it stirs up many happy memories, and still resonates with me. Simply stated, it is solid, sound, well-composed music, and it is timeless. That was/is his genius. It was difficult for me to choose which one I would post--there were so many--I Write the Songs, Mandy, Copacabana, I Made it Through the Rain--but in the end, it had to come down to, Could it be magic, which is based on the Chopin Prelude in C minor.
Thirty years ago I was about to begin my last semester of high school. Then, music was my life. It meant everything to me and it was all I wanted to do. About that same time, the wildly popular European pop group, ABBA, came out with a song that I adopted as my own, and to this day it still expresses all that is in my heart concerning music.
I have been down an interesting and often difficult path in life over the last thirty years, but one thing in my life has remained constant--the music. Even in those years when I felt it had left me, it was still there, and now I know that it will always be there and it will always be the reason that I came here. I am the girl with golden hair, and I will always be thankful for the music.
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| Lynette Erwin |
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