Eulogy for Michelle Meldrum 1968-2008. R.I.P.
There are no correct words at times like these.
All I have are my own and hopefully a few well chosen quotes.
Please bear with Me.
But allow me,if I may, to start with the words of a man far wiser than I.
In 1868 Henry Frederik Amelie said-
To do easily what is difficult is the mark of talent. To do what is impossible is the mark of genius.
And that my friends is Michelle Jolie Meldrum.
During a break in recording the other night Mish and I were practicing our acceptance speeches, you know,for when we got our Grammys…as you do.
Now,
Mine was predictably filled with profanity,revenge ,much waving of my ever erect middle digit and a robust open invitation to kiss my….
Well, I’m sure that you get the picture.
And Michelle’s?
Oh Man,It was pure Mish.Breathtaking in its purity and soul driven simplicity.As gracious and dignified as a geisha.She had the ability to floor me.
How could this meringue topped angel cake of a woman,this Botticelli Gibson wrangling goddess possibly be real? And more to the point, want to be my friend?
And that is why I wish to speak to you today of the one thing that we all share.
Pure unadulterated rock and roll soaked sonically enhanced luck.
And the gift of an amazing life that we are here to celebrate.
I know that I am grateful and that we are all truly lucky…..
There are some rare people on the face of the planet that shine so brightly ,with such pure intent and truth that you know,to the very marrow of your bones that the moment that they direct that laser like beam from their lions heart at your mere mortal self that nothing, nothing will ever be the same again.
They are different.
They speak to your higher senses with 1000 technicolor tongues and glow with an other worldly phosphorescence.
Their voices filled with the rich sonorous cadence of priceless instruments touched by a master players hands.
Once touched? You are home from that moment on….
Michelle was more than a wonderful only daughter.She was more than a nurturing and gracious friend to us all weather it be over mighty years or mere hours.More than a dedicated mother to the one man that she called “The love of my life” Her cherished and adored son Jake.
To all of us who got as lucky as I did, as we all did, she was and is a gift.
A conduit for grace and beauty so rare that you couldn’t help but be affected.
And she made it look so damn easy.
And we were and will continue to be touched, by her legacy of music and how she will be kept alive in our lives with the re-telling of her magnificent story. Of all of our stories about her that will continue to tie us together over the tirrany of distance and the agony of grief.
A tie that will bind us in a world spanning knot consisting of love,laughter a shot of jager or two and more than a few broken guitar strings.
I want you now to look to your left and then your right.Hold out your hand to the person beside you and know.Know without a doubt that you are in a room with the luckiest men and women in California today….Because we had her.
I would like to conclude with the words of a great Irish man whom we know have a certain flair for , among other things, poetry, grief, tall-stories and hardcore alcoholism.
Arthur O’Shaunnusay.
Ode.
We are the music makers
And we are the dreamers of dreams
Wandering by lone sea breakers
And sitting by desolate streams
World losers and world forsakers
upon whom the pale moon gleams
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world forever it seems….
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the worlds great cities
And out of a fabulous story
we fashion an empires glory
One man with a dream at pleasure
Shall go forth and conquer a crown
and 3 with a new songs measure
can trample an empire down.
We in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth
Built Nineveh with our sighing and babble itself with our mirth
And overthrew them with prophesizing
To the old of the new worlds worth
For each age is a dream that is dying
Or one that is coming to birth.
——————————
Remember, its only goodbye for now.
In the immortal words of Bon Scott “Ride on”
Ride on Michelle, we love you.
M
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