Love is forever…One woman’s journey with grief

E has been jonesin’ for a SmartPhone for about a week, and has been doing research as to whether he can justify (to himself—I don’t care; he works for a living, and I know there’s probably another guitar in my future somewhere down the line, so I’m not going to carp) the purchase of the object of his gadget lust.  He wondered what our current plan involved, both in cost and minutes, so I told him I’d find the last bill and give him the 411. 

It was innocuous enough a task, to start.  I found it.  When I pay the bill, I don’t usually check out the specific calls unless the bill is higher than normal, but I looked through it to see if I could find a total number of minutes for E’s information.  What I found instead was a slew of phone calls to California, which didn’t make any sense to me until I looked at the dates.  July 16…July 17…July 18.  And then I started crying.  I never did remember how many times I tried to get ahold of him that weekend; that weekend and the week thereafter are a blur to me now, as they were at the time.  To see them all in black and white, and more calls than I realized I made…well…damn. 

God, I wish he’d answered the phone.  I wish it more than anything.  I had a dream recently where it had all been a mistake, and he was sorry he made me worry.  But it was just a dream, and I knew he was dead in the dream, as did he.  I was glad to talk to him anyway.  I wish he visited in my dreams more often.

I know there will be ambushes; there’ve been many of them.  What I don’t know is what seemingly unrelated thing is going to precipitate one.  Blue awnings and white toast and asti spumante and seeing 19^th Street (specifically) on a San Francisco map have all done it.  I tell myself that it merely speaks to how close he and I really were, that so many things make me think of him.  But as true as that is, it is a double-edged sword, because it also highlights just how much I’ve lost.

I know that he’s gone.  It’s an inescapable fact.  I’m not unclear on the concept.  And yet, I find myself shaking my head again and again, thinking, "I cannot believe he’s not here." 

I woke up Monday morning to the radio announcing a contest, the prize for which was a pair of tickets to Leon Russell, who is going to be playing at the Fox Theatre here in town on October 4^th.  I’d had no idea he was going to be in town prior to that moment, but as I went about my morning routine, I seriously considered going.

Leon wrote “Song for You,” a favorite of mine (although I like Ray Charles’ version), a favorite of A’s.  And I thought it would be nice to go to the concert in memory of A, because he would’ve enjoyed it.  Not only that, but the timing coincided with the general timeframe that he would’ve been here visiting, and we very well might’ve made plans to attend that show as a trip highlight, just like Santana last year.  Truth of it is, though, that while Leon’s quite the songwriter, he ain’t much of a singer.  And were A still alive, and not able to join me for the show, I’m unlikely to have gone to it.  Tickets through Ticketbastard run $25-50, plus a third again in fees, of course, and I’m not THAT enamored of Leon per se.

When I got to work, I had an e-mail from my dear friend J inviting me to dinner the evening of October 4^th.  And I went back and forth for awhile.  Which to do?  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do dinner; I did, but I knew we could adjust the date if I needed to.  But did I really need to?

In a world that more often than not seems chaotic and ambiguous, every once in awhile things line up and present you with a choice that makes it clear to you that you are at a crossroads, where you understand that you are determining a course you could be following for awhile.  And while you often have the opportunity to change your mind, it’s also clear that it would behoove you to make the right decision right now, because you have to start somewhere.  And sometimes those choices show up in disguises that make them seem like no big deal, like a weeknight dinner.  But if we are the sum of our choices, even dinner, if it’s the right dinner, can have major ramifications. 

Here I found myself at a crossroads in grief:  Did I keep looking backwards, going to a show I probably wouldn’t have gone to on my own were he alive, in a well-intended but misguided attempt at a memorial?  Or did I look forward and do something I love to do with a friend I love, who is here, now?  I could choose a bit of healing; I could choose to prove to myself I’m learning some of the lessons of this great loss; I could choose to live this life.  Or not.

I decided dinner with J was way more important.  I decided that choosing to appreciate now instead of servicing the past was the right thing to do.  This signals a change in thinking and feeling for me since mid-July, (and is in line with the decision I made regarding sharing the truth of my situation with his friends), in that I realize that I cannot go back, and I need to make decisions that move me forward, one way or another.  While I can, and will, hold the memories in my heart forever, I cannot keep the past in the present by sheer force of will.  I cannot hold time still, and the more I tighten my grasp, the more star systems will slip through my fingers.  Or rather, the moments that make up a life.  I can’t allow that, for so many reasons, all of them good.  That doesn’t mean that I am “over it,” that I’m fine and will be fine from here out.  It doesn’t mean that I’m not going to make appropriate memorial gestures.  It doesn’t mean that he is being left behind and forgotten.  Not a chance.  It just means that I am consciously choosing to do what I think I need to do to progress, however incrementally.  Making those choices is often difficult, but I realize they’re necessary.  I couldn’t do anything about him dying.  But I have everything to do with whether I bury myself alive.

It is A’s granddaughter’s second birthday today.  I can’t believe she’s 2 already.  She has no idea that someone a state away is thinking about her, someone whose name she will probably never know.  She has no idea that A called me from the road between his home and L.A. on his way down to be there when she was born.  He was giddy; I was, too.  She has no idea that I half-jokingly referred to her as my granddaughter; so clever was I to avoid the whole child-rearing bit in between.  She has no idea that I told A silly jokes for her because as funny as he was, he couldn’t tell a joke to save his life.  He told me I’d tell her myself some day.  She will probably not remember him, and yet he adored her like the sun.  She lit up his eyes and his heart and his world like nothing else.  They were already pals.  He loved being a grandpa, and he was so good at it.  He was going to love it some more when the next one arrived in January.  She is going to miss out on knowing a wonderful man who loved her so very, very much.  We are all missing out.

She has no idea that someone she’ll never meet will never forget her.   

Last November A had the opportunity to see the one, the only, Sir Paul McCartney perform at the HP Pavilion, compliments of his best friend, M.  The two of them have been Beatles fans since that Sunday evening in 1964, so this was the show of a lifetime for A, more literally than any of us would’ve believed, as it turned out.  He was blown away by Sir Paul, and called me on his cell phone 4 times during the concert just to leave “messages” of the music and the roar of the crowd for me.  I was appropriately jealous, but thrilled that he had the chance.  

M had heard that Sir Paul was signing autographs after his shows, and had brought two albums (and I mean albums—actual records) which he tossed up on the stage at the end of the show to be signed.  When the dust had settled, only one came back to him and even discussion with the event staff did not result in the return of Beatles VI.  Whether they couldn’t find it or didn’t care to try, I don’t know.  But A decided to get his copy of Beatles VI from the house and give it to M, both to replace the one that was lost and as a thank you for the concert.

Apparently, A had 2 copies of the record, one stereo and one mono, and decided to give them both to M.  I thought it odd to give him two copies of the same record, but hey, they were his records.  I found out last weekend that M thought it a bit odd, too.  Why would he have given him two copies of it?

It became clear, maybe to both of us, when M gave me the stereo copy of the album, and I nearly cried with gratitude.  As I’ve mentioned, all of A’s worldly possessions were scooped up and moved out, and I have no idea where any of them are, nor am I in any position to ask.  M knows all this.  A’s sister will send me the cards and letters she found that I sent him, and is looking into the whereabouts of the bracelet I made for him that he wore every day.  It may well be with his ex.  I’ve given up on his guitar.  I’m sad about it, but what can I do?  So, as you might imagine, to receive this record meant a lot to me.  And it seems to me that the reason that he gave M 2 copies is so that M would have one to give to me.  Not that he knew he would die; but rather, maybe whatever moved him to give both knew.  The only mementos I’ve received in the wake of A’s passing have come from M and his wife, and I bless them for that.

So I carefully placed this album, which was in such pristine condition that the original shrink wrap was still on it, carefully slit on just the one side to get the record out, in my bag.  It was the same as it had been since the day in 1965 when A bought it, although the tagboard smelled of age.  I plan to frame the record and hang it, because I have it in digital format.  Plus, I fear records, clumsy as I am and never having quite gotten the hang of putting the needle on the record without great fear and frequent scratching.  Our turntable hasn’t had a needle in it for years, anyway.

I also put another memento in the bag, a beer bottle that had been turned into a vase and now sported a ribbon and a sunflower.  The beer bottle was from the 6-pack A brought to their last gathering, and I was grateful to have it as well.  But I forgot about it entirely until I went through security and was stopped for secondary screening.  

I was trying to figure out what was in the bag that would’ve caused concern, as I’d packed very, very light, and then it came to me.  “It’s a beer bottle, made into a vase,” I said.

“Is it empty?” said the security guy, probably in his late 40s, early 50s.

“Yep, except for a sunflower in it.”

Now, you’d think with all that technology, and an X-ray of exactly where the bottle was, they’d be able to grab it immediately.  You’d be wrong.  After fumbling through the bag, a small messenger-type bag with a single zipper, for a good 5 minutes, and still unable to lay hands on the offending bottle, the supervisor finally said to the guy “You’re going to have to take stuff out,” which was good, since he’d pawed my worn undies and bra enough as far as I was concerned, and still couldn’t find the bottle, which was way at the bottom.

So he took out the clothes.  And then he roughly pulled the record out of the bag, ripping the shrink wrap that had managed to remain intact for the last 41 years.  My eyes got big, but I said nothing, because you don’t cause trouble in the security line unless you want more.  And it was too late to do anything but be belligerent.  There was no fixing it.  

He set the record down on top of my other stuff in the bin, and then did a double-take and lifted it up again to see the title, then looked at me significantly, as if to say “Wow.  An actual LP, and you have good taste.  That’s a classic.  A veritable antique.”

And I looked back at him significantly, as if to say “Yes, it is.  And it was perfect until you got ahold of it, you fucktard.  Thanks so much for ruining it.”

So they finally found the bottle/vase, amazingly empty but for a sunflower, and started putting my crap back into the bag.

“I’ll take the record,” I said.

“You want to repack it yourself?” the security guy said.

“Yeah.”

“Good idea,” he said, and smiled.

Ya think?

Thursday night I decided to do something about the growing collection of books being shoved and piled near and around others on my bookshelf by appropriating a bookshelf from the front room that held a few knick-knacks and putting it in my office. I have amassed quite the grief-related library in the last 11 weeks (tomorrow), and there are more on the way. (Amazon loves me this year, although we’ve been close for some time.) While I was rearranging the books, I spied the Office Depot file box that has been sitting under my music stand pretty much since A brought it to me last October, filled with books he was lending me. I didn’t mention them to anyone in his family. I’m keeping them, which is fair enough, seeing as somebody, maybe his ex, has quite a few of mine that I’ll never get back.