Love is forever…One woman’s journey with grief

I’m sorry, I can’t come in to work today. I’m sad.

I told him I didn’t really feel like dealing today, and could potentially see myself staying in bed all day. But I decided to take a shower and see where I was after that. Perhaps once I got moving I’d feel better, or maybe there’d be something in my e-mail that would lighten my heart. No such savior was forthcoming, and I decided I didn’t need to worry about my little work projects today. I needed to worry only about me. I only took one day off, the day of the memorial I couldn’t go to, since A passed. Looking back, that seems weird to me. One day? Believe me, I wanted to take more. But I think I feared that if I stayed in bed more than that, I’d stay there for months. Sometimes that desire is quite strong. So I promised myself that if it just got to be too much, I’d honor that, and retreat from the world as needed.

Unlike most widows, I am not alone. I still have a loving spouse beside me and am not rattling around in the house by myself. And I do not have an estate to settle, a task of magnitude and minutiae that can only be overwhelming even in the best of times, and yet it has to be tended to at the worst of times, when you’re broken and bereft. While I still have to attend to my husband and dogs and my job, I have the luxury of being able to fall back and focus on my grief, knowing that I, and everything else, will be taken care of. Not everyone does. That doesn’t really make me lucky; it just makes me compassionate when I think about how much harder it must be for them. I think rather than providing closure, settling an estate is just one reminder after another of what you’ve lost, surreal as you stand outside of yourself and say “Jesus, what am I doing? This is unreal!” I had a moment like that as I packed up the photos I’d framed for his family and friends. I felt that bizarre disconnect again as I held the print-out of his obituary in my hand, entirely too brief to encompass the man he was. I suppose they all are, though.

After I e-mailed E that I was definitely not coming in to work, I grabbed my current favorite picture of A, my hanky, and crawled back into bed. For awhile, I just stared into space. Then I started to cry and talk out loud to him. I begin to suspect that the pain actually doesn’t ease—it just becomes more controllable. But I’ve only just stepped onto this road, and can make no judgments of its navigability until I can look back and see it behind me.

I thought I’d spend the entire day in bed like that, but instead I felt the urge to act. One of the things on my vague mental list was to, at some point, re-record some songs that, through poor amp settings by me, had poor vocals. I ended up spending the rest of the day on them. It seemed fitting, given that two years ago today I started playing the guitar, and Tuesday became a tribute to the man who made that possible. It was bittersweet, to play and record these songs and know I couldn’t send them to him, but somehow it seemed right. He loved to watch Concert for George, the benefit concert/memorial for George Harrison (his favorite Beatle) on the anniversary of George’s passing away from cancer. A always thought that was the best memorial ever, all his friends who loved him playing his music and remembering him. That wasn’t my intent when I started the day, but it was the result nonetheless.

So here you go, Sweetie. I couldn’t get Ringo or Clapton to jam with me, but I made up for it in heart.

One of the songs was “Serendipity,” the first song I ever learned on the guitar, and one I wrote for A. I remember the day I sent it to him. It was August 29th, and I’d been playing guitar for a whole 3 weeks. I only knew one song—this one—so that’s what I practiced for hours every day. It was still rough, but I’d been wanting to send it to him since I wrote it, and I finally decided I couldn’t wait anymore. He told me that he listened to it 4 times before he could even try to write a response, so touched was he, and even so, he was speechless. I was already smitten by then, and I didn’t even know yet what a handsome gent he was. It’d be another week before he sent me his picture.

I sent him updated versions now and again, and he loved them all, and when he was here in October and came to hear me perform at open mic on his last night in town, I made sure it was on the set list. The most recent one had vocals that were muddy, though, and I decided that one needed to be fixed first and foremost.

The next song I redid was “Fair Warning.” When I wrote the song, it was about that moment when you realize you are well on your way to loving this new person in your life, and you don’t want them to ever go away, and you realize how vulnerable you are now because you care. But the day after I knew for sure he was gone, the song came back to me like a bullet, and I wondered if I could ever sing it again, because the meaning had changed entirely for me. I had no idea how right I was when I wrote it, but I do now. Funny how the same words can mean something totally different based on circumstances.

Before you break my heart
there’s something you should know.
This heart’s fragile, not so agile, and it’s yours;
might not recover if you go.

Before you disappear,
leave tears brimming in my eyes,
Understand I’ve come to need you, and
I’m no good at goodbyes.

Words ringing in my head
words better left unsaid
It’s just pride that’s in my way
of begging you…please stay
Stay….

Before you let me go,
Before your lips forget my name,
You’d leave empty the parts of me that you touched,
And I’d never be the same.

I redid another one, “1969,” a song that was partially A-inspired, because we talked more than once about space travel, and what it was like for him as an 18-year-old to watch the moon landing on TV.

And finally, the last and probably the hardest one to do, a cover. It was hard because I’ve been working on the song since June 21st, and had kept it a secret. I always wanted to impress A with something new I’d learned, and I’d planned to unveil it when I visited him at the end of July, and play it for him on his beloved Telecaster. I was also a little afraid if I told him what I was working on, he’d say “Aretha? Really?” He probably wouldn’t have, but I figured if I blew him away with it as fait accompli, he couldn’t question my choice. I often had little surprises I was working on guitar-wise, but I’d get so excited about them, I’d spill half-way through their preparation. I never could keep a good secret, but this one I was going to. I did tease him while we chatted as I showed him on cam me doing bar chords way up the neck, and he nearly swooned. He was patient, and knew I’d crack in time and tell him.

I never got the chance. And he would’ve loved it. Great song, me playing electric guitar WITH A PICK, 2 guitar parts, bar chords galore, (up the neck, no less!), and left-hand rhythm. He would’ve been so proud. It really kills me that he won’t hear it. I should’ve told him. I should’ve sent him a sample, even if it sucked.

I should’ve done a lot of things.

And I hate this so much. Death is an evil son of a bitch, a thief of everything that matters. And sudden death is worse, because there is no denouement, no ending. The person you loved just stops. Every memory you have of them vibrantly alive makes this reality that much harder to understand. He was just here! Where did he go? How? Why? How does a person just stop? And you are left with a ton of unfinished business, and making more every day. And even if it’s good business, like a new song to show off to your guitar guru, it doesn’t matter. You’re stuck holding your hands out, offering everything you had: love, kindness, dreams, new songs, news, and they’re not there to take it from you. And you drop to your buckled knees, wishing for just one more chance to be with them, even as you know it wouldn’t be even close to enough.

It’s taken me half an hour to write that paragraph, because I can’t stop crying. Maybe I should stop writing.

Anyway, the song is “Runnin’ Out of Fools.” 

And if you listen closely, you can hear me howling.