The only constant
I have mentioned 10@10 on KFOG before here. It’s something A introduced me to, and I listened to it from time to time when he was alive. After he died, I became a dedicated listener 5 days a week. I liked still being connected to something that he enjoyed, something living and fresh instead of just a memory, something that he shared with me, something from the Bay area when most of my other connections had slipped away or been tarnished by his absence. I don’t listen to the morning show, but I never miss 10@10 if I can help it.
The DJ, Dave Morey, announced his retirement on his blog last night, and on the air today. Dave will never know that in addition to creating a kickass show with fantastic music that I love, he also was part of something that mattered to me on a much deeper and more personal level. I had known it was coming, but had put it out of my mind. The announcement made it real, and it made me a little sad. It’s hard to believe that, 2+ years out, I’m still running into fresh secondary losses. They don’t make me crumble anymore, but I rather hope this is the last of them. Enough already.
It’s not as bad as it could be; he’s still going to do 10@10 from his home studio, so things won’t change all that much for me, until he decides to retire from that, too. And I find myself grateful for that; I never expected to be so attached to a radio show.
I wish him well, of course. He’s done his time, made a lot of listeners happy in a shared love of music, and he’s earned a lovely retirement. But of course, given the connection, some thoughts are inevitable for me. Dave Morey is the same age as my A should be; they graduated the same year from high school. He is retiring to a lake house. My sweetie, who always said that he’d work until the day he died, "retired" to whatever comes next. I’d like to believe that whatever that is, it’s way better than a lake house, and he doesn’t feel at all cheated, regardless of how I and the other people who love him feel.