Jeff’s best, of course, is fantastic. He showed up to the rehearsal -- this big, shambling, untidy guy with a round face like a moon – and he blew us all away. He has been working regularly with us ever since. The last gig together was a glamorous wedding reception in the Napa Valley on July 14. I say glamorous but actually, it was the gig from hell. The wedding co-coordinator treated us as grunts. The bandstand was on an unshaded knoll and they wouldn’t let us park anywhere near it. So in 100 degrees F, we hauled our equipment across 150 yards of over watered grass, sinking with every step. Jeff had it worse than anyone. His blood pressure seemed through the roof even before the first tune. I turned to him while I was singing and his chubby apple cheeks glowed like a candy apple. He never complained. He wasn’t like that. Jeff lived to be helpful to others.
The bride’s name was Amy and at the last minute, the besotted groom demanded we do “Once In Love With Amy.” Good God, it was a 70-year-old tune! In about five minutes, Jeff taught it to me and we sang it together. Then a Frenchman wanted La Marseilles. Sacrebleu! We did that too. Jeff could do almost anything.
Let me tell you about last Friday, when we heard the awful news. Jeff was due to play a big band concert with us. We expected a crowd of 400. Minutes before we were leaving for the gig, Jeff’s friend Brad Hammet called about a rumor that Jeff was in a terrible car accident. John and I are not cold-blooded. Like Jeff, we are professionals. We knew even if the rumor were true, canceling the gig was impossible. We needed a sub, fast. Here Jeff’s goodness helped us out yet again. Our other pianist Tom Charlesworth didn’t hesitate when we called. He instantly dropped his plans for the weekend. Not just to help John and me. You see, Tom lost his wife a year ago. Jeff barely knew Tom and had never met Nancy Charlesworth. But Jeff came to Nancy’s funeral. He understood supporting a colleague. He understood loss. And Jeff truly understood LOVE.
When you work several times a week with people, for years, you get to know them fairly well. Jeff was one of the funniest guys I’ve ever known. His mind was so quick; sometimes he was off on another tangent while I was still laughing at the previous punch line. But we knew his life wasn’t always happy. He cried on our shoulders for a year after his marriage broke up. His heart was broken and his life was a wreck. But he still had his music and he never stopped working. He drove too far and too often. I doubt he ate properly. Sometimes his suits looked like he’d slept in them. Maybe he had. I doubt he got enough sleep because he worked too hard. Sometimes he did three gigs a day. He was never emotionally able to refuse a job. You see, he had a thousand musician friends and he didn’t want to let anyone down. We all took advantage of that. Two things drove Jeff. He loved music and he loved his daughter. But I’m afraid that apart from the pleasure of playing and the joy he got from little Angie, much of his life could be summed up as Stress, Stress, Stress.
At the gig last Friday night I said to my friend Donna Hannickel “At least now, Jeff must be free of all that pressure.” And Donna said: “yes, but I think he’d take all the stress back if he could have the chance to see Angela grow up.”
Angela, you gave your Daddy so many smiles. His big face beamed like the MOON when he talked about you. He told me about your trips to Disneyland. How you preferred Minnie to Mickey Mouse. He would tell me all the cute things you told him. He is so proud to be your Daddy.
Angela, I can’t imagine how it must feel to face the future without this wonderful guy who watches Builder Bob with you and wears hundreds of silly hats. And makes his piano ring like a telephone or bark like a doggie. Like all the best people, there was so much of kid in Jeff. I remember how you showed up at park gigs. You’d come running to the keyboard when he was playing. I was singing and I used to look behind me and nearly crack up at his big moon face and your mini-moon face both beaming; I could swear he’d cloned you from a toenail clipping!
If you don’t remember today when you are grown up, I hope these testimonials we are saving will remind you of how everyone with half a heart could only love and respect your Daddy. If you ever hear anyone criticizing him – and some people love to knock those who are not around to defend themselves – remember that even in a crumpled suit, your Daddy made the world a more beautiful place. Thank God so many of us have recordings of his singing and playing. Daddy is the gift that goes on giving!
I was looking for photos of Jeff yesterday. I thought it would also be nice to see his handwriting, so I went through a bunch of my cancelled checks looking for his signature. You know, I found I had written him a check some years ago and I have no record that he actually cashed it. I suspect he just lost it. You see, Jeff wasn’t terribly organized with money! So I’ve given the money to your Grandma Mary to help with the funeral. Your Daddy would never cheat anyone. I’m not going to cheat him, either.
In my New Zealand culture, we believe that people don’t actually die until everyone who loves and remembers them is gone. Look around you, Angela. See how many of us love Jeff. Too many for one little Church to hold. All over America, there are thousands more -- who just could not make it today -- sending their love. We all know how kind and pure his spirit is. I believe it is with us now.
Last Friday, as our band struggled through our gig without him, we all felt numb from our loss. I thought: this is surreal; the crowd’s here. We kick off the tunes and we go through the motions like robots. During a piano solo, I accidentally introduced “Mr Jeff Bond”. You see, he’d been part of our sound for SO long. It was automatic.
Despite our pain though, it was a beautiful night. I looked up to the sky for some sign that Jeff’s poor, battered spirit was watching over us, that he knew he had not let us down; that he was making sure we got through his solos without him. You know what I saw? I saw the moon and I remembered his round, friendly, beaming face.
I felt like it was shining down on us from Heaven.
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