Yesterday I was reading one of the various blogs I skim on occasion. This particular blog has several writers and posts random things they find interesting. I often skip most of it. For some reason yesterday I hit play on a video that said Flash Mob. The ever so familiar tune of Ode to Joy started to play. For some reason, I became overwhelmed with, well, Joy as the song suggests and thoughts of my Uncle Tom. You see, this was my Uncle's favorite song. I don't know why I remember that. He died tragically in 1994 when I was ten years old. Unfortunately that is still pretty young and although I remember bits and pieces about his house, work, personality, it's not a whole lot. Yet I remember it's his favorite song.
Ode to Joy is not an uncommon song. You all know the tune. It's the first song I learned to play on any instrument. I know I hear it frequently. Why this particular time I was flooded with thoughts of my uncle made me a little curious. They were all happy thoughts and I was glad to be thinking of him, but it surprised me a little. I started to wonder, wouldn't it be strange if I found out today somehow related to him? I figured I could probably find his name in an old news article being that he was prominent in the community. His obituary has to be somewhere. I didn't think of the fact that my last name plus obituary is sort of flooding the news at the moment with the movie massacre and all. I didn't get anywhere. I let it go.
Later in the day I found myself on the phone with my father. When I asked him when Tom's birthday was he was genuinely shocked. He knows there was no way I had any clue what day of the year it was. I don't consider myself a religious person or anything along those lines but it's times like this when I think maybe the universe is trying to tell me something. Today is the day. Happy Birthday Uncle Tom! I have a feeling you would have enjoyed this video. Love you.
8 comments:
it happens that way sometimes, oh joy!
Weird. I'm of the school that would chalk it down to coincidence, but it is a startling coincidence. Perhaps sometime in your childhood someone mentioned his birthday, or you subconsciously remembered going to his birthday party when you were younger.
Either way, I'm glad it bought back some happy memories.
That is pretty wild! Things like that happen to me sometimes too, and it always seems really weird.
Happy Birthday Uncle Tom!
Jay
I think everything is interconnected and our brains just don't understand the patterns...but sometimes what we need to know gets illuminated.
It's really lovely that you had this whole moment remembering your uncle. I think that's the gist of how we'd all like to be remembered.
I love that video, it gave me goosebumps.
I thinking Ode to Joy, do I know that song? I watched the video. OOHHhh THAT song!
Uncle Tom guided you to the video.
Well you got me looking at youtube. I found a long version of this that I thought you might get a kick out of. 10,000 people in Japan doing an 18 minute version. Your Uncle Tom could be hiding in the crowd.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paH0V6JLxSI
*whistles X-Files theme song*
I'm a bit slow reading the post (what else is new?) but, the song has been stuck in my head since you & Jo posted it to FB. Happy birthday to Uncle Tom and the world works in mysterious ways. I am older than LL, so I will leave whistling the Twilight theme - no not the one with the vampires ;)
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