The First of Two Hard Days

Today is the first of the two day long anniversary of Kirk’s death. Tomorrow is the calendar anniversary, but today is just as much the one year mark as tomorrow. To me, he died on Friday at 4:30. I identify with that even more than I do the date. Which means I get to feel the one year mark twice – as if life after his death does not give me enough hard markers.

Many of you have started to call or contacted me in the past few days. I also know (some of you are better at keeping things quiet than others) that some of you have even questioned whether you should just travel here unannounced to spend the time with me. Your support and caring is so helpful and I appreciate it so much.

Leading up to this day, the past week or so has been very very difficult. I could feel the hard dates coming, and I have been through enough of them now to know how very rough they are, how much pain really comes with this kind of day. A year of experience is not very kind, because all it seems to do is get me even more panicked before the actual dates get here. I have at times over the past week been so thoroughly distraught that I literally felt claustrophobic, panicky, with my heart racing and an overwhelming urge to run as fast as I could to escape the feeling. I tried actually running a few times, when I could. It actually helps a little, but the distress doesn’t go away.

And now Day 1 is here. One year ago today I woke up from our last sleep together. The last morning I got ready for work while Kirk slept in the bed. The very last morning I ever heard him say “drive carefully, take a banana.” So how am I doing? Surprisingly, better than I expected. Better than earlier in the week. Very sad, but even more, very comforted by my good and happy memories.

Earlier this week, I made my Kirk playlist. This is a compilation of music that is very important for me. Each song has meaning for a different reason, and each has been very painful for me in the past year. When they came on the radio, I quickly turned to another station. I had most of them in my iPod, but rarely had the courage to listen to even one, and never all of them together. But I have been feeling for a while that maybe if I faced them, they could help me. So finally, when the pain this week got so bad I felt it couldn’t be worse, I took every one of these songs and made a playlist of them in my iPod. Then I played it over and over. In the car. Alone at night. While I ran and ran to escape, to explode out the grief. And what I found is that although they still all make me cry, what they do even more is bring me close to him, and that’s what I need more than anything.

On this day, I want to tell you about these songs. Every song is on the list for a different reason, but every one will tell you something about Kirk and me. They tell who we were, how we felt about each other, what it has been like to lose him, and what I have come to believe our relationship is now.

Bridge Over Troubled Water, by Simon and Garfunkel: Kirk always said this was the greatest song ever written (I know, some of you are thinking right now that you would have predicted he would have said that about Hulk Hogan’s theme song, but you’d be wrong…). He loved this song, and I did too. This CD often played while we floated quietly in the water next to our boat on some of our happiest and most peaceful days. So it brings back strong memories of him. But it has taken on new meaning for me in addition to the old. Now I really hear the words instead of just singing them. I hear someone speaking to a girl they love. The girl is in her very darkest hour, and the man is saying he will help her and bring comfort. It makes me think maybe there is some sort of fate in him loving a song so much that now speaks to my pain and hurt. But then there is the last verse, which I struggle with. “Sail on silver girl, sail on by. Your time has come to shine, all your dreams are on their way, see how they shine. If you need a friend, I’m sailing right behind, like a bridge over troubled water, I will ease your mind.” Clearly the girl is breaking through the darkness and there is hope and happiness coming. Can that apply to me? Do I want it to? If my most profound dream is to have him back, how can this part work for me? I listen to this song over and over, as if it was written for me, knowing the first part is just right, finding comfort in the thought that somehow he is with me and helping me, but trying to figure out how this last part can possibly work.

Crazy Love, by Van Morrison: This song describes the pure depth of how we felt about each other, and also speaks to our physical affection for each other. The coming home at the end of the day, so happy to see each other, to find him in the kiss chair. The ease we gave each other, the attraction we were still so lucky to feel. The strength and pull of the love he had for me, and the love I like to think I gave back. This is the last song we ever danced to, and I whispered the words of the song to him softly while he held me. It was the only time I ever sang to him, and I meant every word.

Fire and Rain, by James Taylor: A song about sudden loss of someone. The singer thought they had seen hard times before, but now realizes that those times pale in comparison to losing the person you love suddenly and forever. It speaks to the assumption we all make - that every time we separate from a person we love that we will see the person again. But sometimes you don’t. When I left the house a year ago, it never occurred to me that I was seeing him for the last time.

For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her, by Simon and Garfunkel: Another song from the boat CD. A man dreaming of a woman, looking for her. He sees her and she runs to him. They walk holding hands. They sleep, and when he wakes, he looks at her and sings of how much he loves her and how grateful he is for her. The last line is “I love you girl, oh I love you.” Several times since losing Kirk I have fallen asleep on a plane with my iPod on, and woken at the exact time these last words played. Enough said.

Her Diamonds, by Rob Thomas: A song about a woman in incredible pain, who can’t take anymore, crying and crying with her hopelessness. The song is being sung by the man who loves her and is helpless in the face of her sadness. He can’t take her sadness away so he cries too, and describes how deep her sadness is and how hard it is to watch her cry and be unable to fix it. I feel like this is what it must be like for Kirk to watch me.

I Could Not Ask For More, by Sara Evans: Kirk and I never had “a song” the way a lot of people do. I guess that’s what happens when you elope – you are never forced to pick a song :). However, we both did have one song (a different one for each of us) that deeply moved us and that we always related to the other person. We never really talked about these songs, but this was the one I had for him (he had another for me, and it comes later in the list). The song describes how the singer feels about the person she loves, and how she couldn’t ask for anything more than him. That’s exactly how I always felt – lucky and grateful for him and our life and family, and at peace with not needing anything more. It’s ironic now though, because as perfect as the song was before he died, I now realize that I did want more – more him. More days, more years.

I Run To You, by Lady Antebellum: This song came out right around the time Kirk died, and I couldn’t stand to hear it, because it is about the fact that whatever hard or good times the singer has, she goes straight to one person – the person she trusts and loves, the first person she turns to for everything she needs. This was one of the best things about having him, and is one of the hardest things about losing him – not being able to talk to the person I talked to about EVERYTHING.

Never Alone, by Jim Brickman and Lady Antebellum: This is the song I have written about before. The one about being with someone even when you are apart, about the fact that distance cannot fully separate us from someone we love.

Someday, by Rob Thomas: About someone who is grieving, trying to get through each day. About the confusion of grief – should you run? Try to kill time? Hide from people, shove your feelings down? Carry on normally when you just want to sit down and cry? I’ve done all these things, both figuratively and literally. But the song is also about the hope that someday things will be better somehow, that the person will figure out how to cope, how to end the doubt inherent in grief, how to find peace, or even happiness again. The song was written as the theme song to a movie about two grieving people – a woman who lost her husband and a man who lost his brother. They meet through their grief and eventually fall in love. The movie came out last year after Kirk died and the song and movie really infuriated me. The thought that someone could lose her husband and then have it all fixed by falling in love with someone else was just ludicrous – it is just not that convenient or simple. So initially I hated parts of this song, because it talks about starting over, about noticing that life can be good, and about eventually being “better off.” I heard it often though, because it plays on the station my hairdresser uses, and it would come on once or sometimes twice every time I went there. I still have some discomfort with the words, but I am starting to realize that it does not talk about being better off than BEFORE the grief, just being better off, which I now see can mean better off than the grieving. It is really about the confusion and distress of grieving, and finding your way through it to being able to “live out loud” again. And the song does not reference another relationship at all – it just talks about starting over, which is what I guess I have to do. So I listen to this one hard when it comes on and try to really think through the idea of not just existing, but eventually being happy somehow.

You Look Wonderful Tonight, by Eric Clapton: The last song on the list, and Kirk’s song. This was his secret song for me. If it was secret, how did I know? Because whenever it came on he got quiet, and found me. Whether we were at a party, a wedding, a bar, at home, it didn’t matter – he came and found me. He never really said anything about it. Just quietly held me, and softly rocked me, or sometimes pulled me by the hand to dance with him. It says everything about how he felt about me. How much he still thought I was beautiful, how proud he was to be with me. How he loved to watch me dress, put my makeup on, do my hair. I can still remember so clearly the times when I would be getting ready to go out, and I shooed him away and managed the transformation alone, only to come out of the bedroom and have him look at me and say in a husky quiet voice that told me he truly meant it, “You’re gorgeous.” I never saw myself the way he did, but there was no doubt about his feelings.

So that’s my Kirk playlist. Songs about how we felt about each other, about my grief, about the distance between us now, but also about still somehow being here for each other. It is a powerful list for me, and makes me feel close to him and to who we were whenever I listen to it. It clears my thinking and calms me even though I cry. I shouldn’t have waited so long to make it.

One year later, it is clear that words I put on his tombstone were the right ones.

Their love, deep and true
Was strengthened by life
And is undiminished by death.