I came to visit Amy the other day, but she was gone.

Outside there was still the huge billboard.

But when I tried to capture it, it wouldn’t focus.

One of Amy’s favorite songs was written by Carole King: “Doesn’t anybody live in one place anymore?”

And Amy has left the building.

Amy and I shared the same music. Her “chill out” tape included recordings of Ella Fitzgerald singing On the Sunny Side of the Street, and Someone to Watch Over Me (a song I sang with Randi Zuckerberg a few years ago), Sinatra’s version of Fly Me to the Moon (I have often sung this with the HED big band), Ray Charles’ (who else) version of Georgia on my mind, I should care (a wifie favorite), Unchain my heart (again Ray), The Platters’ Only You (I must have danced to that song hundreds of times, at close proximity), Ella and Louis singing Love is Here to Stay (eternal)

Her list ends with Louis’ “It’a Wonderful World“. Makes you wonder why she left.

“I want to go somewhere where I am stretched right to my limits and perhaps even beyond.”

“I want to be remembered for being an acrtess, a singer, for sell-out concerts and sell-out

West-End and Broadway shows for being just…me.”

Amy was ‘her’. To the end. And now she is gone.

Gone are her LPs of Frank Sinatra, Thelonius Monk, Duke Ellington with Mahalia Jackson, and even Dr. Zhivago.

And of course, Frank (I almost sat backstage with him in 1975, but that’s another story).

In 2006 she wrote that her Dad was always singing songs like “You Go to My Head”. The first time she heard Frank sing it she knew every word because “that was my dad’ song.

It was the first song that I ever recorded, back in 1983 with Atalia Pniel, Nachum Kaplan and Udi. Must find it somewhere.

I thought that she might have left her quirky metal guitar. I would have learned to play it, I promise.

But her guitar has left the building as well.

Now, all that’s left is a place sad and lonely…

Here and there, you can still see her. Her portrait is still on one of the walls. Soon too, it will be gone.

Amy has left the building.

Oh, and yes. I still love you, Amy.