What did you miss when the days went missing? What did you wish for when the world went dark?” Lyrics from the song What Did You Miss, Mary Chapin Carpenter (2025)
It was Saturday evening, November 2, 1996 and I was sitting in my hotel room in downtown Tokyo getting ready to see a performance of the Japan Philharmonic at Suntory Hall. As exciting as that may sound, my real heart was in Princeton, NJ where my favorite singer songwriter of all time — Mary Chapin Carpenter — was giving a benefit performance in honor of the Christopher Reeve Foundation at McCarter Theatre. I had bought my 4 tickets for the event several months earlier not knowing that my work and heavy travel schedule would get in the way of being able to attend the concert. Pat was only 5 years old at the time so Jean and I didn’t think it would make sense for him to go so ultimately Mom, Tarah, and Tarah’s friend Carly Schlamowitcz took my place.
Carpenter had already established herself as one of the leading singer songwriters of the day producing one hit after another, with my three personal favorites up to that pint being “Outside Looking In”, “Stones in the Road”, and earlier that year, the release of “10,000 Miles” which was arguably the best song on the soundtrack of that great family movie with Jeff Daniels called “Fly Away Home”. So to say that I was bummed for not being able to go would be an understatement. So I went to my symphony “alone again” and when I caught up with Mom over the phone the next day, I could hear Tarah and Katie gushing in the background because Carpenter brought her golden retriever up on stage with her and little did we know at the time but we had already become true disciples of the Golden breed with the addition of Casey Kirnan to our family just a few years earlier.
Even though Tarah was only in 5th grade and Katie in 3rd grade at that time, I was so happy to hear how much everyone enjoyed seeing that concert Over the years as I listened to every one of Carpenter’s songs, I would often tell myself that I just had to see her play live. I had said that very same thing to myself with my other favorite female singer songwriter of that era — Sarah Mclachlan — and fortunately that dream came true last year when Mom, Pat, and I saw her perform in Philadelphia in June 2024. So when I saw that Carpenter was going to play at McCarter, I just knew I had to see her and the concert Mom and I witnessed this past Sunday night was the best concert I’ver ever seen.
I’m still on a high two days later and her opening song “What Did You Miss” from her new album “Personal History” resonated so deeply with me as I felt as if she were talking directly to me and so many thoughts you have in your fourth quarter of life. The title — “What Did You Miss” — well, yeah I missed that concert 29 years ago and thought I’d never get another chance to see her perform. But in every song she writes, the lyrics are always so powerful, so emotional, and touch on so many things that happen in the journey of life. She’s always had that uncanny ability to frame in prose what you are feeling inside or going through which is why over the past 30 years “Stones in the Road”, “Outside Looking In”, “10,000 Miles”, and more recently “Something Tamed,, Something Wild” connect with people like me.
She’s 67 years old now and still producing her very best work. Her voice is as resonant as ever and there’s not a track on her new album that doesn’t hit home as Mom and I were sharing notes about each of her new songs as we drove home Sunday night.
I am so glad I finally had the opportunity 29 years later to see her perform in her hometown of Princeton, NJ where some of my own strongest and deepest memories will always be.
So that opening line for What Did You Miss — “What did you miss when the days went missing? What did you wish for when the world went dark?” For me, the answer to those two questions are always going to be each of you, my four grandchildren, my Mom and Dad, Bernie and Marie, Aunt Jackie and Uncle Chris and all the others we have loved and lost in this precious life God has given us. Each of you and each of them will always be a part of me and who I am.
Sending you the gift of God’s abundant blessings. Love always, Dad
