I grew up in a house full of music. No matter what, day and night there was a CD or a tape playing and everyone was singing along. A house full of music is supposed to be a happy place. My grandma liked to say that a baby who sings is a happy baby. It all makes sense, right?

My older sisters always knew what was on the radio, my dad loved Steppenwolf and the Beach Boys. But my mom loved Santana. She had one particular greatest hits CD by Santana that she played constantly, it seemed, no matter what time it was. I’d come home and be greeted by “Black Magic Woman” and a box of crackers. I loved that album too. And I loved my mom. I didn’t get along well with anyone in my family except her; we had that special bond that a mother and a son have sometimes. Anything I needed to talk to anyone about – it was my mom who was there to listen and do whatever she could to help me. No one else knew what was happening inside my strange little head, only my mom did. We sat together and listened to Santana a lot. Her favorite song, and thus mine as well, was “Samba Pa Ti.” No words, just feelings. That song was everything you could want from one man with his guitar. The organ swirled around the guitar lines to build a small fort you could bury yourself in for hours at a time. Other albums and other songs came and went, but we always went back to “Samba Pa Ti.”

As I grew older the music in the house faded. When I wanted to listen to music I had to do it through my headphones in my room, so no one else could hear. My family grew less content with each other. My sisters left. My dad was home less and less. Sometimes I would go long stretches without talking to anyone in the house. My mom somehow started changing into a completely different person.

Then one day she picked me up from school and said she was going out of town for a while. She said she would come back. I kissed her goodbye. She left, and I went to my first high school football game. That night my dad and one of my sisters picked me up after the game. They said mom had told them she was leaving and never coming back.

I was devastated. The one person who understood me at all wasn’t going to be around any more. Later on, she told my dad to tell me that she only meant to leave him, but she never meant to leave me. Sorry, mom. It doesn’t work that way.

When she left I had several of her CDs, which included the Santana CDs – and that greatest hits record. I still have it, to this day. It stays in the group of CDs that I never go anywhere without, but I never dare listen to it. I play guitar and I’ve gotten fairly good now. Sometimes, when no one else is around, I pick up the guitar she gave me and play every note of “Samba Pa Ti,” despite the fact that I haven’t heard it in years.