It's always hard to lose family, isn't it? Kin, chosen, born to, we're interwoven threads. When a thread is gone, the weave continues. Just with something missing. And something added. Memories. Don't forget those, they're the part that, I find, makes the whole. Illumination comes in many forms, after all.

It's difficult to talk of family with outsiders. Have you ever stood at a funeral, or the wake, listening to some distant cousin tell a story, and asked yourself "Where was she for all the weekends? Sunday dinners? Shitty diapers and chicken pox and..."

I know that's not fair. We are all of us weaving our own tapestry, trodding our own path. It just hurts in the moment sometimes. Me, I have to put aside talking about family in those moments. Too close to it.

So I can't talk about Dr. John, who left us. Probably late for a gig, a session maybe. Piano duel, with Professor Longhair and Fats Domino.

Ellis Marsalis is, maybe, the last of that branch of the family. The stride and the roll and the keys.

I'm not blood kin to Dr. John. Not that I know of. But musically? Yeah, Doc's family. The Neville Brothers, the Marsalis family, Dr. John. Professor Longhair and Fats, and later Harry Connick, Jr. Pops, aka Louis Armstrong, and Allen Toussaint. Family. If you knew what to listen for, going back home, you'd look for a flyer, maybe, or listen to the wind, and Allen might be playing Tipitina's, or the Professor would be at the Jazz Fest, or there'd be a Halloween party and who knows who'd show up.

Find the right parade at Mardis Gras, when I still went, and there before he climbed up on the float Dr. John might be holding court.

When I saw him there, he did that by listening. No big stories or personality, just ears and eyes and the songwriter's observation.

Go on Doc, play it for us. We'll dance you on, and you sing us home.