My friend, please join me as I stand before my album and leaf through sepia tinted images offering a sneak peek into the past.
Here's the first image: A picture of an 11 year old girl standing in the shade of a huge tree.
You guessed it, the girl is me and standing a short distance away are my mommy and daddy, exchanging ideas, arguing lightheartedly.
In this moment, I am content. This is as it should be, my mom and dad together. They had been separated forever and in that time I had ached for my father. And now, they were talking and laughing, and I'm only 11 but a toddler could see that they love each other, except they're standing on opposite banks and between them flows a river of hurt, new families, and unspoken apologies.
I'm standing in the shade of the tree and behind me there flows a river, a real river, a landmark separating the oil town from the city. I'm on the edge of the river and I do not know that this moment will be cemented in my memory forever, and that the moment will come when I will lose my father suddenly, but that this song will be released simultaneously and that as I step away from his final resting place a car would pass by playing this melody reminding me that my daddy's not quite gone but actually just down by the river waiting for me.
Fast forward with me to a second picture.
Here, I'm a young adult, it's late evening, the sun has set and lights are going on all over the city. I'm sitting in the stands of the football stadium, there's no game on, but sitting next to me, holding my hand and making a promise he could not keep is the love of my life. His promise: to love me forever, to make me his wife.
In this moment, my heart is full. I feel protected. I feel as I've always wanted to feel... I feel wanted.
His raspy voice is soothing as we stare at the world together and plan for our future.
Later that evening as we walk home, I playfully don his cap and he lifts me onto his shoulder. Neighbors passing by complement our love for each other.
We get home, we turn the music on and he starts dancing.
I laugh because his dance is off beat, but now he's beckoning to me and soon we're both caught up, dancing to this melody.
The moment is perfect momentarily, but our forever love was not meant to be, and a few months from this moment, he is taken from me suddenly.
Our bond was so tight, though we were miles away when he breathed his last, I was on the ground at the exact time he passed, groaning in intense pain, barely able to gasp for help. For the next few days, I suffered with fever and on the day I felt better, my mom came to me. The news could wait no longer.
I was jilted, abandoned, my groom had skipped out on me and we hadn't even made it to the altar. And he'd gone so far away, Osiris, I couldn't even write him an angry, curse you letter.
As my mom spoke quietly, I shattered, and the neighboring community heard my wail of anguish.
Years have passed since that moment when fate, like Shylock, brutally put a knife to my heart, slicing it in half.
It took a lot to see through the pain, but I eventually did. I moved on and I learned to love again, and I have built a strong and stable life with my current love and partner, married for more than 14 years. Yet, from time to time I remember those idyllic, youthful moments with my first love, when we stared at the stars and dreamed of the future.
I guess he too waits for me by the river.
My friends, this is my first post to the Weekend Community, and it's in response to a prompt posted by group admin Galenkp: "Name two songs or pieces of music that have meant a great deal to you..."
This week's prompts are in keeping with the two year anniversary for the weekend engagement concept, and so all suggestions are associated with the number two. Here's the link with details.
Please note that if music isn't your thing, Galenkp also posts a few other suggestions that you can choose from. Please participate in this activity if you can. Should you try, I'd advise you to pay close attention to the guidelines.
For me, I love music deeply and songs that I connect with remind me of an era, usually important periods in my life. Here I share with you music that connects me with two such periods: bonding with and losing my father and then moving on to enjoy a brief moment of romantic love.
My friends, if there's one thing this life has taught me, it's that life can be at once sweet and painful, that love and loss are two threads on the same cord.
At one time I was caught up in the pain of a moment and my focus was just on loss. Today though I celebrate the ability to feel and the blessing to have experienced moments that brought me joy and peace, however fleeting those moments may have been, and to also have experienced moments of healing so that today I can still love and laugh and hope. That's a huge deal for me.
What can I say? If, in all of eternity, one's life were but a weekend, then for my weekend I'd say I lived and I am grateful for that.
And so, this is my post. Those are two songs that connect me with deeply personal moments. I'm no music connoisseur, but I hope you appreciated the songs I connected to, and I look forward to continuing to engage with each of you, here in The Weekend community and across all of HIVE. Enjoy the weekend everybody!
