How does the song go? (Image Copyright Grateful Dead)

The world’s greatest poet couldn’t tell you what the last two years meant to me.  The best photographer couldn’t paint a picture to show you how that time lived through me.  Even I, the person with the view and ear against the clock that ticked from March 25, 2010 until now, can’t tell you, show you, or make you understand what it all meant to me.

Two years.  It’s more than just time.  It’s more than loss, too.

She is just as much lost now as she was then.  Hours, days, and years will never help us find her.  But it’s a day to consider since it’s been two years.

It was a bumpy patch in the road.  I have driven by the accident scene a few times.  The marks in the road don’t make me sad, they make me grip the wheel and curse to nobody in particular.  Shouldn’t they fix the road?  Orange vests and asphalt are easy to find.

She’d tell me, “their walls are built of cannon balls, their motto is ‘don’t tread on me.'”

I’d tell her, they should fix the damn road.

My time without her is a story I cannot tell.  It’s waiting to come out, but I am afraid it’s not time.  I am not ready.  At one year I talked about loss and what it meant to me, then.  At two years I can tell you that I have no idea what it means, now.  Any of it.

She’d tell me, “it ain’t no time to hate, barely time to wait.”

I’d have to give her that one.  But I’d ask her, “what I want to know, is where does the time go?”

I have grown.  We have grown.  She has grown, in our memories.  If she was ever alone, she isn’t now.  She is safe, because they can hold hands and talk about where it all went wrong.  They can talk about the good times, too, and just maybe we can all smile and try to hear their laughter through Uncle John’s Band.

They’d say “well the first days are the hardest days, don’t you worry anymore.”

And I’d join them, and we’d sing together.  But under my breath I’d whisper, “easy for you to say.”

I can’t hear her, but when I do I’ll describe their laughter.  That must be my poem, my picture, my words.  Two years.  Here.  Now.  But only when I can hear them together, will I really have a story to tell.

—

I’ve borrowed a few lines from one of her favorites.  All lyrics by Grateful Dead (J. Garcia, R. Hunter), “Uncle John’s Band.”

Categories: Creative Writing, Life, Observation, Perspective

Tags: creative writing, grateful dead, In Memory, life, loss, perspective, prayer, Sadness, Uncle John's Band, writing