{"id":430,"date":"2013-04-25T14:23:01","date_gmt":"2013-04-25T19:23:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theonlyloveproject.org\/?p=430"},"modified":"2013-04-26T09:53:45","modified_gmt":"2013-04-26T14:53:45","slug":"it-tolls-for-thee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonlyloveproject.org\/?p=430","title":{"rendered":"It Tolls For Thee"},"content":{"rendered":"

For some reason, I’m still upset by the February 17, 2013, suicide of Country Music star Mindy McCready<\/a>. \"MindyTenThousand\"<\/p>\n

I didn’t know Mindy personally. I had barely even heard of her before her suicide. I knew her as most everyone else did: by her mug shots and the barrage of sad media stories in the months leading up to her death.<\/p>\n

According to her entry<\/a> on Wikipedia,<\/p>\n

Overall, McCready’s four studio albums accounted for twelve singles on the Billboard<\/em> country singles charts. This figure includes the Number One hit “Guys Do It All the Time”, as well as the Top Ten hits “Ten Thousand Angels” and “A Girl’s Gotta Do (What a Girl’s Gotta Do)”. Although she had not charted a single since 2002, McCready received significant media coverage regarding her personal life. McCready’s fifth studio album, I’m Still Here<\/em>, was released in March 2010.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Five studio albums? A Number One hit? Twelve singles? Another article<\/a> stated she had sold over three million albums. So she was not someone without considerable talent. Or beauty. How did her life come to this?<\/p>\n

Something about her life, and tragic death, has haunted me.<\/p>\n

Part of it, I’m sure, is that her death reminded me of the suicide three years ago of Garry, a friend and former co-worker.<\/p>\n

No doubt about it. Garry was a quirky guy, perhaps the quirkiest I’ve ever known. A short, skinny ma\"StayTheNight\"<\/a>n with more in common with Dustin Hoffman’s Rain Man character (or Mayberry’s Barney Fife) than ad legend David Ogilvy, whom he deeply admired, Garry had the kind of mind that could remember what happened on days stretching back to the 1950s…and he would tell you about them, in microscopic detail, each time you encountered him. He was 61, had never married, lived alone, and had been unemployed for two years.<\/p>\n

Politics was his favorite topic, especially how we were all getting screwed by the people in Washington. Second favorite topic was how he got screwed by employers over the years. Third favorite topic was how he was getting screwed by the system, especially would-be employers who couldn’t see past his retro appearance and age to give him a chance to make a living.<\/p>\n

Whenever my wife and I would run into him at a local book store (where he hung out often, just as we did), he would immediately launch into his repertoire of stories, virtually word for word, that we’d heard dozens of times in the 10 years we knew him. It was like he was a record player and the needle would drop down in the middle of a song. His conversations were like that, almost liked they picked up in the \"NotSoTough\"<\/a>middle. He’d walk up to us and say, “I was talking to Bob at X-Y-Z company in 1984. It was Tuesday. June 23rd. It had been raining. But the sun had come out. We stood in the parking lot next to his light-blue BMW. He had just bought it. He told me the company where we’d worked for 14 years had just been bought out by…”<\/p>\n

We’d listen to him, occasionally interject a word or two, and after 30-60 minutes had elapsed, chalk up another interesting visit with Garry.<\/p>\n

He did have another favorite topic – music, especially the trumpet that he played (a Schilke B-Flat, if I recall correctly) and the Chicago Symphony or the Canadian Brass Quintet<\/a>. He could (and did) tell us who was currently first principle chair, and what make and model of brass instrument the musician played, for any given year of the symphony or quintet.<\/p>\n

Garry was convinced he faced a life of rejection and unemployment until the day he died. We knew he was sad and worried. So we’d politely listen to his stories. One time I told him, “You’re a great copywriter,” Garry. “One of the best. Hang in there. Something will turn up.” I looked him straight in the eyes as I said it. I wasn’t kidding. And I wanted him to know it. I wanted him to know I valued him as a person, and respected his gift for copywriting.<\/p>\n

Still, no matter how often we’d listen to Garry’s stories, or tell him how much we appreciated his talent, he ended his life on June 9, 2010.<\/p>\n

\"MindyMcready\"<\/a>After Mindy McCready died, I spent time online reading about her. Also, I bought all five of her studio CDs, most of which were already out of print at the time of her passing (which I found sad), and I listened to them. Repeatedly. Perhaps I was still upset by my friend’s death. But I felt that I needed to get to know Mindy.<\/p>\n

I discovered that Mindy’s life was one success after another, followed by one tragedy after another, some of which was self imposed, granted. But a lot of it wasn’t. I also discovered that she had a great voice, a lot of talent, her own style, and a career that was far from over — despite what the media wanted us (and her) to believe.<\/p>\n

The last month of her life, starting on January 13, 2013, reads like something from a horror novel. The timeline<\/a> of events would push any rational person close to the edge. Someone already teetering on the brink didn’t stand a chance.<\/p>\n

On January 13, her “soulmate” (David Wilson) was found dead from a gunshot wound. On February 6, Mindy was committed to a treatment facility for a mental-health and alcohol abuse evaluation, her sons were removed from her care. She was released on February 8. But her kids were not returned.<\/p>\n

On February 16, she gave an interview in which she talked about discovering David on the front porch of their home. She said<\/a>,<\/p>\n

“He was lying on the ground with his brains all over the floor. And then I held him and I kissed him and I told him I forgave him. And I said, ‘David, none of this means anything. You didn’t have to do this. Please, don’t die. Please. We love you so much. Please don’t die.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Twenty-four hours later, on February 17, 2013, Mindy took her own life.<\/p>\n

\"ImStillHere\"<\/a>One report <\/a>quotes Mindy’s father, Tim, who said that after David’s suicide, “[Mindy was] not bathing or even helping take care of her two children.\u201d According to the article, “He also added that she remained in bed for three weeks while mixing alcohol and prescription pills after the loss.”<\/p>\n

As I listened to her CDs on my iPod (the aforementioned five studio albums, plus a Greatest Hits album called Platinum & Gold Collection<\/em> – 67 tracks in all), I read fan reviews of her albums on Amazon, some of which said she really wanted to do more serious music and sought to get away from her sexpot image that the record labels encouraged her to adopt.<\/p>\n

In addition to listening and reading…and doing a lot of pondering…I watched video clips of Mindy’s songs. Like this one, for “Guys Do It All the Time”:<\/p>\n