Day 14: Diamonds in the Snow, Sparkle

When I was younger, in my early college years, this song would always, always make me think of Matt, who had moved to Australia right after high school graduation. I had mentally changing the lyric to 24,000 miles. I didn't realize how much I missed him until I heard this song that first Christmas after he was gone. It nearly brought me to my knees, Chrissy's pleading, "I miss you..." Truer words, with truer sentiment, had never been sung.

We had a conversation one year, just before another Christmas, a dollar a minute trans-continental phone call, about how he wanted to be home to see it snow at Christmas again. He missed it, and he missed me. That was one of the years he sent a big Christmas package home, with presents in it for each one of us, and a note to read while we opened them. We were supposed to all get together and make fun of him and open them as a group; what happened was the letter made the rounds with each person's presents. It didn't matter to me which way it went. He wasn't there, and the ache got deeper and deeper with each passing day.

I wonder if he still misses the snow at Christmas time?

Bonus content: To make this song even MORE poignant, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones chose to cover it for this year's Hometown Throwdown, and released a video that is full of old time Norwood footage. I know some of the people in these scenes, and it brought me to tears the first time I watched it. Maybe the second, too. And it brought back how much I missed Matt once more, and how nice it would be to see him and play records and walk around the town in winter, just to be hanging out again. Dickie is forgiven all his sins for this one video...

Been gone, 2000 miles, is very far.
Outside the snow is falling down, gets colder day by day,
I miss you...

2000 Miles - The Pretenders

MP3 File