Ronnie James Dio 7.10.1942 - 5.16.2010
There has not been a great wealth of writing done here as of late. Sometimes I just find it hard to pull together enough emotional energy to put more than 140-characters together with which to communicate to the outside world. Today is a little different and this is an actual blog entry. I was taken aback this evening to learn that one of my childhood favorites had passed away.  Ronnie James Dio died this morning from stomach cancer at the age of 67. Dio meant a lot to me for more than a few reasons. I enjoyed his music - in fact, "The Last In Line" tour was the first concert I had ever attended. I was one of the 8000 at the Providence Civic Center that August evening in 1984. I went with my very first friend, Dave, who at the age of 32 passed away of natural causes. One of the few living links to my childhood and to my friend Dave died today.Dio may never receive the attention of the music world - at the age of 40, it came as a surprise to learn that he had announced he had cancer last year. Not one word in the mainstream press as to his condition. Sure, we hear about Brittney's mental catastrophes and Jon & Kate - media darlings all - but nothing about Ronnie. I can be so plugged in on so many levels, but that connection to my own history has lapsed. Had it not been for a casual and cursory glance through my Facebook connections would I have even learned of his passing. However, he holds a special place in my heart. Back in the 1980's, concert shirts, and specifically the baseball style shirts, were the rage. I remember wearing that shirt - heather grey, with black sleeves, the "Last In Line" album over on the front with tour dates on the back - for the better part of a week and a half...every day. Those who knew me then can attest. I remember the waning weeks of the summer, the last few before starting the first great transition of my life - from Junior High School into High School, at a new school in another town, away from all the people I had known in elementary school - enjoying the summer, enjoying the time away from school and enjoying life. I had the safety of the neighborhood, the people I had always known, and everything I had always known. It was probably the last time in my life, I knew exactly what to expect. And so with Ronnie James Dio's passing today, yet another brick in the wall of my childhood has come loose. Every time I think the last piece is gone, another one crumbles. As I get older, those connections to those summer days in 1984 grow fewer and those which remain seem more tenuous.
My beloved grandmother passed away in 1998 and at that point it seemed like the last remaining connection to my childhood had passed away. The Halloween parties in her barn, the Christmas family-get-togethers, the minutiae that we tend to take for granted. Then in 2002, that horrible phone call I got from my father telling me that Dave had had "an accident." As it turns out, it was a cerebral accident. He had heard through the grapevine and I processed it as an auto accident - I remembered those teenage times, riding through the streets of my hometown in his Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme as a passenger sitting on nothing more than a milk crate - and it made sense. Only afterward when I realized what had really happened did it make no sense at all. Then in 2008 it came time for my father to be called to the great beyond, and that significant piece of my life passed with him. This was a man who was always there for me, asked for so little, and in return probably got what he had asked for.
I am a father now, and I think of what my life means to those around me. Someday it shall be my children and possibly their children considering their own mortality at my passing. Some day, many years from now, their musical heroes will pass away. I hope to God not, but perhaps their childhood friends will pass much too soon and they will feel this sense of loss.
For now, though, it is my own feelings of sadness which find me writing. Oddly enough, it is not for the loss of an artist - his music will live on and his memory will survive - it is for my own childhood and the memories his music holds for me and that time which it represents that has suffered. Reminding me yet again that time is fleeting and how important it is to remain close to those who knew you when you were young.
Rest in peace, Ronnie James Dio. You are missed. He shared a birthday with my mother - they were born the same day in 1942. My mom is alive and well, although time has taken it's toll. Take a moment to remember those who are still in your life and who still remember you as a child. They grow fewer as the years grow longer.
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