'Song for Catfish' by Amy Greenberg performed by the Woodhaven All-Stars and featuring Bro. Bruce Kirshner on electric guitar.

http://www.dialogsplus.com/songforcatfish.mp3

Tommy at seventeen.

Happy Birthday, Tom!

Tommy Sheehan seen at James Brown concert!

To friends and family of Tommy Sheehan:
Anita sent me this e-mail the other day.

Dear David,

As I just said, you'll never guess what Stephen found. Thomas is on YouTube!

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=2D6C7C8D67CCE02C

At 2 minutes 27 seconds have your mouse near the pause button. You will see Thomas at a James Brown concert! Honest! It's amazing.

If I remembered how to get to Tom's Place I'd post it there, but it's tax season and I bearly know my own first name. I think it starts with an A

Hugs,
A (something)

Sitting in the Herrenhäuser Gärten

It was wonderful having Jill come to visit me here in Germany recently. She and I are old friends- which means that we’ve known each other for over ten years now and I hadn't seen her in two of those years. Actually we used to be boyfriend and girlfriend; we had had a real-life impact on each other and then we broke up. That was years ago but she knows a lot about me and she knows about Tom because I had always shared things with her that were going on in my life and as I traveled in different circles, I had spoken to her about him. I shared things with her that were important to me.

On one particular day during her visit we went to the Herrenhäuser Gärten. These are the king’s gardens of Hannover created in the 17th Century and preserved and maintained today in all their stately beauty. The flowers were blooming madly and sun beat down on us as we walked along the rows and rows of magnificent beds of color. We took a stroll through one of the rose gardens, walking along and talking about our lives which seemed to be quite appropriate in the peace and tranquility of the garden. At one point I mentioned Tom and she asked me to tell her more about him. Just at that moment we were passing the entrance to one of six private arboretum spaces that ring the central fountain. I took Jill’s hand and led here into the quiet space. The late afternoon sun was flickering through the tall trees that surrounded the enclosure and straight ahead of us were some park benches that seems to be waiting for us and for me- to tell her about my old friend.

It must have been the rarity of her visit combined with the warmth of the sun and privacy of that garden space that brought out the intimacy of the moment. I felt alive and inspired to talk about Tom to her and I felt our lives as they passed through me and around us both. She asked me, “What happened to him?” “What did he do in his life?” Her curiosity brought me back to the times we had had, to the places we had been to and to the things we had done together in our youth and years later as well. I felt so invited to speak and to tell her what I knew about him and I did.

I began to tell her of how I had first met him, how I had been so impressed with his ability and his creativity. How I had followed him around Brooklyn and how he had such an impact on me in showing me the way music is made. I told her about his challenges, his depressions and what I knew about his fear. What I have since learned in my own life has made me painfully aware of what I had described in those days only as something that Tom was ‘going through’. Years later however some of the pieces seemed to fit together better and I wish that I had had the presence of mind then to intervene in some way, if only to have said something to him then, to have had an impact on him as he had had on me.

The tale I told her was also a colorful one and filled with his accomplishments, his triumphs; for Tom was triumphant in his own way and I want just as much to remember this about him. He had excelled and he had gone to places that none of us had ever gone to and he did it all with the same gusto with which he played that bass. I told her that despite the tough things that had gone down between us, the things that no one could ever say were his fault or mine, I loved Tom. I loved him because he was my brother. I fought with him over the years because I cared so much about him.

Sitting in the quiet of garden and holding Jill’s hand, I remembered him again and thought to myself that here I was in Germany so far away from everything we had known together or apart and yet in his absence he stays so close to me. It just hit me how some people just have a deep and lasting impact on us. My old friend who’s gone now was that person for me. And all the richness mixed with pain is what I feel in these days to think about him, that we had been somewhere, sometime a long, long time ago and quite like a minstrel’s song his story will always ‘be’ for me, the song of our youth and our dreams- street corner dreams, the ones that never die even as they are ground and tempered in the fire of our real lives. Sitting there was so special that I had to write this. One more time that I think of Tommy Sheehan, one more time I ask the world to remember him again.

Some new things here at Tom's Place include:

• A photo of Tom ca.1990. Tom and my daughter Jackie and I were out for the day in New York and this picture of Tom was among some photos I recently found. It reminds me of Tom's sunny side.
• An e-mail that Amy Greenberg recently sent to Gregg.
• A link to 'For the Catfish' by The Woodhaven All-Stars'
• The lyrics to the song.

Tom ca. 1990

The following is e-mail that Gregg received from Amy Greenberg. For those of you who don't know Amy, she is the keyboardist for The Woodhaven All-Stars and of course this was the band that Tom played bass in until he passed on in May 2005. Amy wrote a wonderful song to Tom entitled 'For the Catfish' (see lyrics and link above).

Dear Gregg,

Thank you for your kind words. The song truthfully almost wrote itself. Your brother was very special to me and I somehow felt he was guiding me to write every word and note of the song. "The Catfish" was one of our nicknames for Tom because he played the blues, especially New Orleans style like nobody's business. Tom O' Brien, our drummer, and Bruce called him that and somehow, the name just fit him. He was a very complex person and probably one of the most talented people with whom I was honored to play. From the time I met him, I had always felt that he was never comfortable in this world and could not find happiness here. Having had cancer myself, we would often talk for long hours about coping with that and with life in general. I, belonging more to this earth, having always had my feet planted firmly in the ground like a sunflower, strong and sturdy, always aware of the sky but never forgetting my roots and always feeling comfortable there, while Tom was always searching for peace in other places and never felt comfortable in his own skin. It used to pain me so that he couldn't find happiness in the moments of his life. I didn't understand that because I stubbornly cling to every moment and treasure each one. I didn't understand how he couldn't see in himself and the world around him the beauty that seemed so clear to me. We all tried to show him all the treasure that was him and sometimes he would hear us briefly and then the doubts and sadness would take over and his search for peace would begin again. I truly believe that he has finally found the peace and light that he was so desperately searching for. I had written two other songs for him but I knew they weren't what I really wanted to say. When I wrote this one, I deeply felt his guiding hand and I knew that he would be alright. I think of him often and feel the peace and joy that is within him. I feel the lightness of his soul, unburdened of all pain. I would like to think that I am a better person because he has touched my life and I know that he taught me to become a better musician. He never believed that he was special and I just wanted to tell him how much he mattered to me and to everyone whose lives he had touched. When I close my eyes, I see his funny hat, and his silver hair and see him smiling as his fingers fly over the bass, weaving those special textures that only he could do. While I have only met Stephen, I feel like I know all of you, as Tom had spoken so much about his family to me so often. I will not mourn Thomas but will celebrate his life with every word I write and every note I play and sing. He will always be part of our stories and wonderful memories and will always be woven into the fabric of our music. Somehow I feel he knows this now.

I tell my son Evan all the time that all people and things on this Earth are only on loan so we must act every day with kindness and treat people and life with care and simply feel blessed that we were given these gifts, even when we sometimes feel that the time we are given to hold onto them was way too brief. I hope you and your family can take comfort in the fact that your brother was loved and valued by his friends. He was lucky to have you, his family, in his life and you were lucky to have been given the gift of him. As for me, I am grateful that he was sent into my life. The last thing I said to Thomas was that I would keep going and that's just what I intend to do and he laughed and said he believed I would:-) Every once in a while, I look over my shoulder and feel him watching over me making sure that I will somehow keep my word:-)

Thank you and your family for sharing your brother with me,Amy

Dear friends,

This is a link to 'For the Catfish' a song written

by Amy Greenberg to our dearly beloved brother Tom Sheehan

http://www.dialogsplus.com/songforcatfish.mp3

(Please be patient. It may take a moment or two to download from the server

and if you have any problems getting to the site, please let me know at:

davemancini@dialogsplus.com)

For the Catfish

You shed your soul
Like a load that was too heavy
Now you are light
Like a leaf in the wind
Free from the pain
That you couldn’t get loose of
Needing too much
Was your only sin

Oh how we tried
To point you towards heaven
Though in our hearts
We all begged you to stay
Isn’t it odd
How despite all the darkness
You held onto so tightly
You found your own way

There’s so much we’ve left unsaid
Silence left unshattered
But all I wish that you could hear
Is that you really mattered

And what you’ve left
Is a whisper of silver
That threads through our stories
And lights up our song
Rest easy, my friend
And go light in forever
May the music inside you
Still guide you along

@ Amy Greenberg, CY2005

This is a poem to Tom written by his sister Monica.

~ Slumber of the Unknown~
Monica Enriquez ~ 11/17/2005

Where are you now, in the slumber of the unknown?

Is peace the feeling in your mind?

Is joy the dance of your feet?

Where are you now, in the slumber of the unknown?

Is music the language you now speak?

Is accomplishment unfulfilled in now your reward?

Where are you now, in the slumber of the unknown?

Is your heaven filled with the ones you knew in life?

Is your time spent in happiness and contentment?

Where are you now, in the slumber of the unknown?

Is there the opportunity to see us here without you?

Is there the ability to give us your heavenly sight?

Where are you now?in the slumbers of the unknown?

Is God the Spirit of Might or the gentle Lamb of our redemption?

Is Love your constant companion?

Where are you now,

in the slumber of the unknown?

Is there hope, joy and unending peace?

Is there awesomeness to behold in each uncountable second in Paradise?

Where are you now, in the slumber of the unknown?

Do you know all the love that we hold in our hearts for you?

Do you feel our emptiness without you here?

Where are you now, in the slumber of the unknown?

We need you to wake-up in our dreams for we still have things to share!

We miss you, we love you, we remember, even to the threshold of the unknown!

Tommy at seventeen.

Tommy at seventeen

Stephen and Thomas