I didn’t know Terri that well back then, she was more of an
acquaintance. Our common friend, Linda, thought it would be ideal for us to
share an apartment. Terri was also renting a room and searching for a new
place. The rent was doable for us and the place wasn’t too bad, even though it
was an old building and the neighborhood was just slightly questionable. We had
no sofas, no dining room set, and no kitchen appliances. I was very excited to
be able to decorate the way we wanted to and buy things little by little. Terri
didn’t care about any of it, she let me decide what to get. As long as she had
her cable with her soaps and her crime shows she was content. She would come
out to smoke a cigarette and that was the only time we would talk about our
kids, our ex-husbands and our jobs. Most
of the time, she just kept to herself.
But when she did talk to me, to be honest, I didn’t believe
half of what she said. She was married to a military man, so maybe she really
did live in Japan. But did she really live in Hawaii and meet Tom Selleck? Did
she actually go to Sammy Hagar concerts and got to hang out with him backstage
more than once? This Terri? The one person that had a hard time saying “yes” to
any social opportunities with friends? I couldn’t picture her being half as
adventurous as she claimed she used to be. The most exciting thing that would
happen to her was when she got to shout “Bingo!” on Sundays, which wasn’t very
often.
I knew she had her demons to wrestle with, as we all do.
Depression, addiction, emotional childhood trauma… She tried to hide the
struggle, but I could feel it. It was like darkness that emanated from her bedroom,
a thick cloud of loneliness that even affected me when she was in there
watching TV. There was nothing anyone around her could do. But we tried. She
didn’t eat well, and her health was not great. She had two blood clots, which
really scared me more than it did her.
There were weeks where I didn’t see her for a couple of days
or more and I would knock at her door with any excuse to make sure I could at
least hear her voice and know that she was OK. One night, I knocked and she
didn’t answer me back. I thought that maybe she was asleep. So I tried to call
her again in the morning and still, no response. I was afraid to open the door.
So I called Linda to come in and check on her. My fears were realized. The
coroner said she had been dead for at least 36 hours. We were all shocked, but
in a way, I wasn’t. I had a feeling that would happen, but I didn’t want to be
the one to find her. I couldn’t even look at her body when they took it out. I
didn’t want to remember her like that.
It was a really difficult situation, something I’ve never
experienced before. Making that 911 call, telling the police and the coroner
about her, trying so hard not to be nervous and give the correct information,
hearing Linda calling Terri’s kids, going to work just to get out of that
apartment and then having to go back… I hated being there alone that night. I
didn’t want to go by her room knowing that’s where she died, but I had to in
order to go to the bathroom. I couldn’t wait to move out, even if it was back
to renting a room, again.
So I tell Rob and he’s shocked, of
course. He felt really bad for me. Everyone he told just couldn’t believe it. A
couple of days later he tells me that he has a song. I listened and it was
perfectly sad. I wrote the lyrics and laid a scratch track down. “Nameless” was
born. Rob shares the origin of the song:
"The road to 'Nameless' started a long time ago in Alaska or Pennsylvania with an E minor/augmented 5th guitar riff that had the sadness of a minor key crossed with the tension of the sharp (5th) harmony note. When I got my new acoustic guitar, I played it in E but moved it up to A to test the range of my new hollow ax. This became the intro. For the verse section, I reclaimed the wistful sound of the original piece by running both the rhythm and harmony lead as an E minor progression but with harmonic minor passing tones to maintain the tension of the piece. I felt that a passionate lead was needed in the middle, like a silent scream that you can suddenly hear. I channeled my inner Zakk Wylde to bring wailing pinch harmonics and abrupt flurries of string tapping to that section within the exotic E harmonic minor framework. I ended up leaving the rhythm guitar out to make the lead section pop even more with the sharp passing tones on the bass. The transition to the heavy part was eased by a high harmony lead and the acoustic rhythm mixed in to tie the feeling to the pure acoustic part. The structure for this song feels very unconventional. It falls back to the acoustic suddenly and the end seems to come sooner than expected. But you are left with the fleeting beauty of the final acoustic part as the lead diverges into a freer form. Every layer was individually constructed to add to the whole sound. It becomes the perfect vehicle for Veronica to exhibit a great amount of feeling that works with the bass and guitar layers to make the song complete."
So while at the memorial service, friends and family shared stories about Terri. One of her friends talked about the time they met Tom Selleck in Hawaii, and someone else talked about Sammy Hagar and the times she hung out with him. I was stunned!! With tears in my eyes, I laughed as we remembered her life. As I’m writing this, I got a text from Linda asking me if we’re going to buy a pint of vodka and let out balloons for Terri’s birthday on May 9th. I laugh and replied, “Terri would like that.” Cheers!
