Rewriting Lyrics

In the past eight to ten months, I’ve done a lot of driving and listening to  music -- 2,500 miles just since February 12. Most of the music I’ve listened to is Travis Tritt’s as Greg thoroughly enjoyed Travis’s music. I have interspersed this with a variety of other music -- from Clint Black to Waylon to soundtracks from Forrest Gump to Ghostbusters.

Invariably, there will be at least one song, no matter the genre nor singer, that brings me to tears with memories of Greg. Maybe because he sang the song frequently. Maybe because he particularly liked the instrumentals in one part of the song. Maybe because he didn’t like the song. With songs that remind me intensely of Greg, I find myself changing the lyrics to make the song about Greg.

“Honky-tonk angel . . .” becomes “Honky-tonk redneck . . . Greg, warm and strong, that’s who I’m longing for.” Every “you” in a heartsick song is changed to “Greg.” “She’s going home with me” morphs into “I’m going home with Greg.” 

Does this help the grief? Sometimes. Sometimes the unrelenting grief is already there. Sometimes it waltzes in with the song. Sometimes . . . sometimes I smile at the memory of Greg complaining about my off-key singing.

Some songs I have rewritten nearly the entire song to reflect my life with Greg, the song resonates so strongly with my emotions. Others, I just sing along, changing the lyrics so they are about Greg. 

One song, however, needs no rewriting . . . George Strait’s “A Fire I Can’t Put Out.”

Grief Is Sneaky

Yesterday morning started off pleasantly. I listened to the squeaking of two small creatures (judging from the sound and volume of the squeaks) travel from the sycamores up the hill toward the road. A squirrel fussed at me while I was feeding the cats; I assume I disturbed its morning rest. By the time I was walking to the truck, birds were filling the air with their morning songs. March flowers were blooming merrily by the driveway, while others scattered around the yard were preparing to bloom.

I did the few things I needed to do on a Friday morning, and after the mailman delivered the day’s mail, I decided to go to Somerset and have Reno’s onion rings for lunch.

It was raining, not heavily but steadily. I didn’t mind. I put on some Travis Tritt music, drove slower than usual because of the rain, and was enjoying the drive. Then grief snuck in on the squeak of a guitar string, wrapped barbed wire around my heart and pulled until the pain was beyond tears. 

Oh, I cried, and cried, and cried. Until the tears dried up and sorrow remained, tiring me to the bone, and haunting my night with eerie dreams of dogs, eyeglasses and strangers.

Eating a quiet meal, listening to random music, writing some poetry and texting a friend while in Reno’s bar eased the grief somewhat. However, the desolation remained and has lingered through today, through another trip to Reno’s bar, through a drive without rain, and through the sun emerging from behind the clouds.

Melancholy is hanging on, relentless in its stubbornness, like patches of melting snow awaiting fresh snowfall. 

Grief doesn’t want to let go of my emotions. It stealthily creeps into a day, like a cat burglar sneaking into a mansion to steal jewels. The jewels grief steals are my moment of cheerfulness, tainting the day with sorrow and tears, leaving me bereft and alone, wishing for a time machine but not sure at what point in my life I want to start over. Perhaps birth?

Grief is sneaky.

Life With A Ghost

Remember the movie The Ghost and Mrs. Muir? Currently, I’m Mrs. Muir.

Greg doesn’t manifest himself to me. He doesn’t need to. Forty-two years of memories, good and bad, have their own spirits that manifest daily.

This past weekend was the roughest time I’ve had since Greg died. Even abandoning Travis Tritt’s music for a day, and listening to other music like The Grass Roots and Steppenwolf, among others, didn’t help. There would be some snippet of a line in any song that reminded me so much of Greg that tears were quick to follow. So I returned to Travis’s music.

Housework didn’t help; I am not a housekeeper and Greg often fussed about that. Driving didn’t help; Greg and I did so much riding around together that the sight of blacktop nearly brought me to tears.

Sunshine, clouds, a glorious sunset, the cats -- even the ones Greg never met, Ford pick-up trucks, cattle, trees, rocks -- anything around me wreaked havoc on my emotions.

I should’ve known something was coming as starting Thursday afternoon I have not been wanting to be at home. Nothing seems “off” or out of place, not in the house, nor the garage or other buildings, nor any of the outdoors. Maybe loneliness has accumulated, though I’m not really wanting to be around other people -- at least not to communicate with them. I do not know what the problem is.

I do know that I had a rough weekend. I didn’t sit alone and mourn. I dined out -- Friday evening and Saturday afternoon. I chatted with a few people and looked at mobile homes. But the sorrow was there, lurking under my skin, waiting to break loose and bring me to tears.

I live with the ghosts of the life I shared with Greg. Reminders are always there. Even if all the things that Greg and I had, and all the places we frequented together, quietly disappeared in the middle of some dark and stormy night, the memories will remain.

Not only am I living with the ghost of Greg, I’m surrounded by hundreds of ghosts -- called memories.

Grief Has No Closure

I was told this past week that I need to find closure to my grief from losing Greg. It upsets this person that I cry as they see crying as a weakness, where I do not. I am strong; I have to be. Tears do not change that, especially tears of grief.

I have come to despise the word “closure.” All of what I consider to be nothing but psychobabble about closure the past several years has caused me to start considering “closure” a curse word. At the very least, a catchword used by people whom I doubt have ever had any extreme trials and tribulations in their lives, and if they have had, they have numbed themselves with some type of medication, legal or otherwise.

There is no closure for grief, even though I have been told that I need to get on with my life and that finding closure will help. I’m not sitting home alone, mourning in darkness, never venturing out. I do most everything by myself that Greg and I did together – come to work, talk to people, shop, drive around, dine out, listen to music. I am just doing all those things without Greg at my side. Yes, I grieve for him and likely always will.

Grief has its own course. Grief does not have a stopping point, like the final payment on a mortgage. Grief does not have an on/off switch like a flashlight. Grief has mood swings, like the weather, from mild days to days of unleashed fury that leave their mark as clear as the path of a tornado.

Other people may not see these marks on my spirit, as I try to keep the worst of them hidden.  A few people, who were close to Greg in many ways, understand the way I feel. I cannot simply get up one morning, let’s say next Friday, and declare that I have “closure” to my grief from losing Greg and that I will never cry nor feel sad or lonesome ever again.

Grief has no closure. I can only learn to deal with it in different ways as time passes.

Who Is Driving Me Home

I had heard snatches of a song about “driving you home” a couple of times while shopping and had been wanting to hear the entire song. I finally did hear the entire song, while dining out alone.  The line I remember best, and probably the title of the song, is “Who’s gonna drive you home tonight.”

For the past year and a half, no one has been driving me home. Without Greg there is no one to drive me home. No one to drive me to the movies. No one to drive me to a nice restaurant. No one to drive me to a concert. No one to drive me down back roads in the wee hours of the morning.

No one to drive me through life.

I’m driving myself these days. To the places mentioned above. Then I drive myself home, where I sit in the truck and wonder why I even have a good vehicle, for I have no one with whom I can share the open road and busy city streets, and glorious scenery along the way.

Friends sometimes travel with me, but it’s not the same as having Greg accompanying me, for they return to their homes, leaving me missing Greg and our travels through life.

No one is driving me home tonight.

Dining Alone

Greg and I were together for forty-two years. In those years, probably ninety-five percent of our meals were eaten in restaurants or as take-out meals. Our work schedules weren’t conducive to meal preparation at home. Add in our propensity to decide at the last minute what we’d like for supper, and meal planning became an impossibility. So, we were familiar with what restaurants in several towns served our favorite foods, available at a moment’s notice.

Most of the time we were together at meal time. Since Greg’s death I have eaten out by myself several times, in different towns and in different types of restaurants. When I mention this to other widows, most of them say they either can’t face eating out alone, or it took a few years before they were comfortable eating out alone.

I was mulling this over recently and remembered that even before Greg’s death, I dined out alone several times a month. Sometimes Greg was in another town on business or golfing. Other times he’d be finished with his work for the day and go home before I was ready for an evening meal.

(Don’t misinterpret that previous statement. Greg worked hard and worked long hours. My part of the business was time-consuming. A job it might take me a week to get ready to print, Greg could print in a couple of hours – just the nature of the beast.)

So, I often dined out alone. At McDonald’s. At Betty’s OK Country Cooking. At Tray’s Garden. At Taco Bell. At Wendy’s. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. I never thought anything about it; it was just the way a particular day happened to go.

Yes, I would prefer dining out with Greg sitting at the table with me. We might discuss the events of the day or what we’d like to do on the weekend. If we had had a hard day of tiring and tedious work we might sit quietly, lost in our thoughts but still together, letting the stress of the day dissipate and our moods lighten.

I do spur of the moment dining out, lock the door at work and by the time I get the truck started I am wanting to eat supper in a restaurant instead of at home. Yes, it is sad to eat alone, without Greg’s presence, but I do dine out alone.

Grief Trumps Everything

I am a winter person. Cool temperatures suit me much better than the heat of summer. Snow coming down lifts my mood like very few other things do.

When I was a child, snow on the ground meant that I spent the entire day outside, sledding or just walking through snow-covered fields. One moonlit night, Momma made the neighbor boy go home at eleven-thirty because she was ready to go to bed; we had been sledding since seven that morning.

My darling Greg and I liked to drive around when it was snowing, especially when it was one of those snowfalls without wind, and large fluffy flakes looked like feathers gently floating down. We had many pleasant drives on snowy days, a couple of harrowing drives, and a magical drive one winter night when the snow was sparkling in the headlights and each flake seemed to bounce a few times before settling to the ground.

This week, however, even though the snowfall has been pretty and the pasture is beautiful, with snow clinging to tree trunks and branches, I cannot enjoy my time of year for Greg is not here to share it with. I miss our drives, his appreciation of the beauty God sent, and the pleasure we had enjoying a beautiful day and each other’s presence.

I went to Greg’s grave Friday afternoon, looked out over the snow-covered bottom and talked to Greg for a few minutes, then walked to the branch and followed a deer trail back to the house. While I appreciated the quiet and beauty of the snowy scenery, my heart was heavy with grief and I could not bring myself to stay outside on that wonderful winter afternoon as I used to do.

Looking at the snow blanketing the front yard, I have a sadness in my heart that I doubt will ever lift. Grief is tied to so many things, some to be expected, like holidays; other things, like the show, are unexpected and hit me with more strength than I ever thought possible.

Grief trumps everything.