Love is forever…One woman’s journey with grief

It’s funny, the things that get you.  Today at 10:03 (I was late), I went online to KFOG to listen to 10@10, which I listen to every work day via the web.  A always listened to it in his shop, and he told me about it, so I tried to listen when I remembered or he reminded me, but I usually forgot.  After he died (and I could listen to music again), I made it a habit to listen, adopting his habit to feel closer to him.  When they’re really good sets, I tell him about it in my journal, just like he would tell me, before.  (Today was excellent—it was 1972, and Dave played 2 songs I’ve been working on, and another by the same artist as yet another song I’m working on.  Wonderful!)

But 10@10 wasn’t on at 10 today, and I was trying to figure out what was going on.  Then I remembered the time change this weekend.  We don’t do daylight savings time here, so the whole world changes backward and forward around us.  It was 9 a.m. in San Francisco, and the show wouldn’t be on for another hour.  That mystery solved, I was still kind of adrift because the time change was another reminder of what has been lost.

A and I had our habits, too.  Every day right before lunch and at the end of the day before we left work, we’d chat online, and the time change always threw him for a couple days, because he’d have to adjust the time he stopped working so we could talk.  It also shortened and lengthened his evening time, too, prior to our talking until bedtime.  He was a sweetheart about it, and never complained about adjusting to my schedule.  He even set the alarm on his watch so he wouldn’t miss our time.  

That watch.  He wore his watch with the face inside his wrist, and I liked that little idiosyncrasy of his a lot.  His father wore his that way, too, he told me.  (I am not the only one who takes on the habits loved ones who have passed.)  He wore his watch constantly, taking it off only to shower.  He even slept with it on, and when I would visit and he’d sleep with his arm around me, it would beep in my ear on the hour, though I would only hear it if I was already awake anyway.  I miss that beep.  And I miss his arm around me.  

He didn’t turn off the alarm when I was there, and when it went off at the normal chat times, we’d joke that it was time for chat, and us without our computers!  But we were able to actually turn and face each other rather than firing up Yahoo messenger, and that was such a gift.  

I still don’t understand this death thing.  I understand the how of it; I live it every day.  But I will never understand why, and it would not be overstating the case to say that I hate that.  Surely the earth is not so overpopulated that he couldn’t have stuck around another 20 years?

Sigh.

Anyway…backtracking a bit…one of the songs I’m working on is Elton John’s “Love Song,” off his Tumbleweed Connection album.  It found me one day on shuffle play (it had a 1 in 9091 chance), and like so many songs, I’d heard it before, but that day it decided to speak to me.  It came from A’s collection originally, significantly.  It struck me as a prayer, at a moment when perhaps I really needed one, and I wonder if he sent it my way.  Every time I play it, it still feels like a prayer to me, not a prayer I made, but one made by someone else and sent to me.  I decided to learn it myself and will debut it at open mic this week.  When I sing it, I am singing it to myself, telling myself what I so desperately need to know to heal.  Or maybe he’s telling me.  I practice it over and over, and it almost has become a mantra.  Here are the words; they ring in my heart as Truth, even if they do not offer explanations.

Love Song-Elton John/Bernie Taupin

Love is the opening door.
Love is what we came here for.
No one could offer you more.
Do you know what I mean?
Have your eyes really seen?