Day 107

Grief is so weird and dramatic. I’m embarrassed by these posts. My grief is not poetic or layered and nuanced and thoughtful. It’s dripping with snot. You used to ask me, right after we’d knock at a door and before they’d open it, is my nose clean? I liked that you trusted me with that.

I was so scared to go to the funeral - genuinely scared someone would say, What are YOU doing here. You had a new wife and kids and a new life but they knew you’d told me, I let them know I was coming and no one said not to but still I was scared. I was the Past.

The moment I got there I saw how stupid it was to worry about that. No one was thinking of me at all. We all looked so naked without you - stunned and red-eyed. To see P. and M. was overwhelming. They showed me pictures of the kids, and you and P. posing with your last ever shared birthday cake. When we said goodbye we ended up with our foreheads pressed together, our tears rained down right onto the floor. I saw R. and K. K. was unable to speak but she hugged me and then we couldn’t let go. We clutched at each other like drowning people. I can still feel her against me, warm and solid. I’ve never seen such grieving eyes.

I hate the way I’m looking for signs, bargaining for signs, not getting any signs, feeling like I don’t deserve any signs, mad about the lack of signs. I’m so ready to throw my atheism over for a sign.

I was thinking of all the live music we went to see.

Johnny Rotten. Kasey Chambers. David Byrne. Shawn Colvin. Puddle of Mudd. Tool. Def Leppard. Aerosmith. Rush. Nine Inch Nails. Metallica. Neil Young. Randy Travis. Goldfrapp. Tori Amos. Public Image Limited. Clint Black. Son Volt. Tom Petty. Wilco. Husker Du. The Gypsy Kings. Lucinda Williams. Willie Nelson. Aimee Mann. Belly. Alison Krauss. Johnny Cash. B.B. King. Disturbed. Black Crows. The Moody Blues. Rolling Stones. Duran Duran. Bob Dylan. I could double this list, triple it, and there would still be more. Music was your emotional language.

The songs I most associate with us tell a story when they are laid end to end. Oh What A Night. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me. Brown-Eyed Girl. Windfall. You’re Still The One. Unknown Legend. Everlong. The Hardest Part.

Pray to whatever is out there, you said and I prayed to everything, indiscriminately. I made outrageous bargains. Some of them I’m still keeping, will keep.

I no longer pray or bargain (much) but I try to resist the siren pull of rumination and regret. You said there was nothing to regret - you said it back when you didn’t even know. I am so grateful that you gave me that. I will try to earn it every hour of my life. I will live a good life full of joy just as soon as I stop all this crying.

I have to go to Texas soon, M. and T. and B. and A. want to toast you though I don’t know how I can face them and their love, it will crush me into little bits. Then I will go back home and drive up to the cemetery to see your stone, which I couldn’t do the day of, first it was just immediate family (how it tore my heart to see your mom’s lip quiver when the funeral home director came up to her and said “they’re ready” and she glimpsed the hearse in the carport.) Then there was no time later, I had to get J. back to St. Louis for her son’s baseball game. After dropping her off I went back to mom and dad’s, drivin n cryin not unlike the band of that name remember when we saw them and I danced to Let’s Go Dancing. Said the firefly to the hurricane.

I stopped crying when I got home, it’s not possible to cry in front of dad, he gets so distressed he runs from the room. So I joined them for a light supper at the kitchen table, then we sat in the dark on the back porch and told stories of you until the mosquitos came out, and everyone went to bed early.