Nothing Else Matters

As I wished my Dad a 72nd birthday over FaceTime this week, I realized I am at the same age when people thought my Dad was "cool". While other parents were picking up their kids in Camrys (hey, we had one too at one point), Accords, and minivans, my Dad stood out while he was picking me up from youth group in his Starlight Blue Mica '96 Miata M-Edition tuned in to KSJO 92.3's "Get the Led Out" blasting Led Zeppelin when I opened the door. (Sidenote: the KSJO history is a study in itself of Bay Area cutlure as it is now a Bollywood station.)

My pops has often told me that he wanted to be a radio DJ and I may have never existed. In the end, he just passed on a variety of music tastes from Andrew Lloyd Weber to Metallica, and from Beethoven to CCR. I can distinctly remember hearing Nothing Else Matters in the Miata. It seemed like it was not part of the typical Taiwanese-American immigrant experience, but it was deeply rooted in ours.

I've been thinking about the song a lot lately as my Mom is battling Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. The song is about trust and vulnerability, and it has absolutely nothing to do with my life, while simultaneously being everything. I resigned from a well-paying job a couple of weeks to focus on family... and the refrain of "nothing else matters" just jives.

It is difficult to know how raw to be on the internet and to friends, but Metallica's Nothing Else Matters was one of the first times James Hetfield had shown vulnerability through music. "Never opened myself this way". My Mom likely has just a few months left and I feel extreme peace in not focusing on career or anything else in this time.

"... and nothing else matters."