Saturday, December 01, 2007

DE eulogy

People were very sweet at David's funeral today, telling me what a great job I did with my tribute to David. Many of them wanted a copy of it so here it is:

David Enloe was my brother and my best friend. We were Mutt and Jeff, Abbott and Costello, Lewis and Martin, Lennon and McCartney and Jagger and Richards. We called ourselves The Dimmer Twins. We didn’t have the glimmer that Mick and Keith had, but we were sure trying.
Everyone here has great memories of David. Being his friend since the fourth grade, band mate since high school, roommate in college and on the road in bands with him for years, I literally have hundreds of “David stories” to tell. We used to do some really stupid stuff, and all in the name of entertainment. Once, we spent the whole school year in high school standing at the same corner in the hallway during our lunch period. The same corner, the same time, every day, for a year. In college we fought over whose turn it was to wash dishes… for three weeks. Finally, we put them all in a box, walked out the back door and one by one threw them all into the woods and then went out and bought more. Don’t ask me who washed those. On one boring Sunday afternoon, he asked me “If there was anything in the world that you wanted to do right now, what would it be?” “Fly to New York”, I answered. He walked over the phone and called Delta. “When’s the next flight to New York?” he asked. Then I heard him say “20 minutes? HOLD THAT PLANE!” Now, we lived on the opposite side of town, 30 minutes away from the airport and hadn’t packed yet, but we got on that plane and stayed in New York for the entire following week…mostly trying to figger out how we were gonna get back home. We finally had to borrow money from my crazy aunt in New Jersey. I put off calling her as long as I could.
The list of memories is long, but like many of you, I will remember David mostly for his music. That will be and should be his legacy. I know we must have stayed up a thousand nights together, listening to, studying and many times writing music. David craved music like it was food for his soul. He taught me a lot about music. He taught me what good music was, what real music was. It was through David that I saw how powerful music could be.
Have you ever been to a concert (or in many cases here today, performed at a concert) where there were literally thousands of people singing together as one? Or I’m sure that here in this church every Sunday morning the entire congregation sings with one powerful voice it’s praises to God. That’s the power of music. David felt that power and lived for that power. He wanted desperately to use that power to bring people together with his music. He wanted to feel their joy, their happiness and their love for life…through his own music.
That’s a powerful feeling, and it’s an overwhelming feeling of love. Music IS love. And much like being in love, band mates and members of musical groups share their hopes and dreams and through their love of music they create children…songs. SONGS are the children created by the love of music. And our pride in these songs is almost as strong as the pride we have in our real children. And like our real children, we send them out into the world to try to change the world. Music is THAT strong. And unfortunately, (As we all feel now) much like love, when the music is over…it hurts. And it’s a deep hurt.
Music meant a lot more to David than to most people. It was more than just the noise they put between the news, weather and traffic report. It was more to him than something to hum along to while he shopped. When music was bad it hurt…or it “hurt his feelings” as he would say. And when the music was good, it excited him, like a war had ended, or he had just gotten a new car or he had just met the most beautiful girl. It meant everything to David.
We would often talk about the “music business” and David always said “it’s the business that’s killing the music”. And we see now, in these times, what he meant by that and how right he was. More and more, the music became about the packaging on the outside instead of the quality of the music on the inside. It became all about a pretty face instead of what was really pouring out of someone’s heart. With his music, David wasn’t afraid to open his heart and show everyone what was inside. It was love.
David loved people. He loved his family, all of his fans, all of his friends and he very much loved Susan and Will. I feel very blessed that David’s last words to me were “I love you”, and I’m sure he told many of you the same thing.
Certainly David’s death is a tragedy, at such a young age he had so much more love and music to give. But I will argue that his life was a success (look around you) and that the real tragedy is that more of the world hasn’t heard his music, or that more musicians don’t play their music with the same passion as David played his.
So go home and play David’s music, turn it up, laugh and cry and feel his joy.
Feel his love. Feel his life and feel the power of his music.
And while you’re listening…git ya hair up!

At this time I’d like to read some of David’s favorite passages from the bible.
From John 14:
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you; I will come back and take you to be with me that you may also be where I am.”
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

10 comments:

Ace said...

Great Job Terry.

A

Anonymous said...

Terry, I was hoping you'd post this for those of us who couldn't be there today. Thank you for sharing your words with us. - Love to you and Grace - Vee

Anonymous said...

You forgot how you brilliantly started it! "Who let the cat.....?" And we answered "Out of the bag!" Brilliant, I tell ya!

I just posted all the pix I took to Myspace:

www.myspace.com/fishcampbarbie

Anonymous said...

Wow. That was

pow.

er.

ful.

I'm sure I would have been bawling my eyes out if had been able to be there. As it is, I am dabbing at my eyes and trying to clear the lump from my throat here at my desk in Colorado.

Thanks so much for posting it.

Now--I hope you'll get some rest! There's an extra helping of music to be made.

Take care of yourself and let's keep in touch. Hey to Grace, too.

Love,

Julia/Julie

Anonymous said...

Thanks for posting. That was truly awesome.
JL

shane said...

Terry,
All there is to say is Beautiful.
I am sure David was there and smiling. I too was choked up reading that heart-felt eulogy. You never cease to enlighten me.

Anonymous said...

David was truly blessed to have a friend like you. Thanks for the music you continue to give and inspire us with. I now live the dream of playing music in front of people because of you.
David G.

Jeff Hart said...

terry, well done friend. the "cat" comment was a great way start that eulogy in robbins. i was prepared to burst into tears just seeing you up there, but as usual you delivered a great laugh to get things rolling. after leaving robbins, i had to get home to prepare for our gig. we'd lost a bassist the week of thanksgiving and we were trying to get one more rehearsal in to patch it up for saturday night as a trio. so for a couple of days, i had rehearsed "sand" and "cat" alone for our gig and threw it out there for the band to listen to and try to learn really fast. but i just felt so inadequate on guitar to do "sand" as a trio. so i brought up jon shain and he joined, chad, me and jim on "who let the cat out of the bag" around midnight. i've only played that song once live and it was when i met ron bartholomew that day in '87 at "under the street", when we joined the woods for a couple of songs. this was just a block from where we were saturday gigging (broad st. cafe). none of that occurred to me till just now. felt like david was there to me saturday. no doubt he'll be there with you on christmas night.

roscoe said...

Amen Brother

Anonymous said...

Terry,

I love you, dear. This is just one reason why. Only a true blue soul like yours could have gotten up there and done that so well. I am crying and I did not know David but I know what you have been through the last few weeks, hell over a month it seems and I have you and Gracie on my mind all the time. You did a lovely job with that speech and it was just the right mix of the hilarious times shared between friends mixed in with true depth of what you felt for your best friend. That is something my friend Terry Anderson can do so well. I am proud of him.

I just called my mom and asked if she could get the copy of your Uncle Bill's eulogy that she did and give it to you. Strangely, she just found it because they are preparing for the next big house on the lake. (I wanna be rich). She is going to find it and give it to you to keep. I thought it appropriate as you clearly had the same impact on your "congregation" as she did on Bill's gathering of friends, family and everyone who crossed his path. We should all be so lucky to have a friend remember us and remind our friend about the goodness in our hearts, our sincerity, our will even though we sometimes fight losing battles, and all the other stuff that is seen through the eyes of someone who understands our true intentions. As I said, I did not know him but it appears you captured him beautifully. Be proud!

I love you so much!!!

I hope to have that for you soon as a gift for your own files when you think of your Uncle Bill. Prepare to cry. It was a tearjerker but I am anxious to read it and I Am hoping I caught it in time for you. I feel like you earned it for what you were strong enough to do for your dear friend. You are rich. You really are. Heart and Soul.

Love, Ali

BIG ASS PS !!!! I desperately need to talk to you-can you call me at my office if you get this 863.0143

Maybe delete my number if you can