I have music on a loop that I listen to in the car. There is one song that never fails to reduce me to tears: Ben Folds, The Luckiest.
I don't often feel lucky.
(I mean, who here really feels that luck has been shining on them?)
Sudden death really doesn't count in the "lucky" stakes.
In fact, in the three years leading up to the accident, we lost both Greg's parents to the most hideous of cancers. This left he and is siblings at odds over the will with Greg the person in the middle trying to make everyone happy, whilst making himself miserable in the process.
...and he'd just managed to get everyone to a shaky agreement, but was dead within months.
Suddenly
Brutally.
Dead.
"Lucky" was not a description I would have used to describe our lives.
Until I started to think about it.
Because Greg and I, we were The Luckiest.
Not many people get to marry the love of their lives.
Many never even get to meet them.
But we did both.
Inseparable from the moment we met and fell in love.
We had a love that was real and solid.
Never wavering.
Never faltering.
We finished each other's sentences and could tell what the other person was thinking with a look.
We laughed at the same things and we cried at the same things.
We
We loved.
Deeply.
Completely.
Soul-shaping love.
...and what we had (still have) was so rare and beautiful, that we really were among The Luckiest people on the planet.
yes.
ReplyDeleteI am lucky too.
Married the love of my life and had a romance that lasted 36 years.
Once - a few years ago we were returning home from Europe.
We were laughing and talking and reveling in all of the fun we had. About 2/3's of the way through our journey home
The flight attendant stopped by our seats and said "I just have to ask, are you two on your honeymoon?"
When we told her how long we were married, she was happily surprised. She said "I have never seen two people (our age) so in love."
I have never forgot it.
Now he is gone.
I often feel the desperation of loneliness his absence has left behind.
But I remember a good friend said to me after he died "you had 36 years of a great love affair. Some people never have that, they live their whole lives and never have it. "
I know I am lucky to have had him for a year.
For 36 - it was a daily gift.
Thanks for a great reminder.
So glad you feel lucky too.
Amanda, so perfectly said! What a tribute to you and Greg! Thanks for the reminder that while I feel so very lost today, I did have 31 years with a man I so very much adored and I know he felt the same way about me. We are truly "lucky"!
ReplyDeleteI'm so with you. People (kindly and sincerely with good intentions) ask me about dating etc. Not interested, what could compare when I already met and loved my soul mate?
ReplyDeletetogether 18 years, married 7, apart for the past 2 after that.
<3 we are the luckiest
Perfect timing. Feeling very sad today, returning from a funeral of a dear friends parent. I was missing my dear husband so very much. But what always helps me thru these tough days is also knowing what I had was so special and that I was lucky. We too were told many times that our love for each other could be seen by others. I too married my the love of my life, he was my very best friend, partner my everything. My heart would still flutter after all our years together too. Together 10, married 20, apart the past 2 1/2 yrs but my love for him continues on. Yes we were lucky.
ReplyDeleteI first heard this song on the way to the hospital one day to be with my husband who was dying of...well, no one actually knew at the time. He had had a brain tumor, which was virtually gone, yet his behavior and personality became erratic, and as time went on, I knew I was losing him to something.
ReplyDeleteOn July 3rd, 2010, his 54th birthday, he collapsed, we couldn't get coherent conversation out of him, he couldn't stand up, he didn't know where he was.
He was admitted to the hospital, and things went downhill from there.
He died on September 16th of that year. Occasionally the man I loved would come through the fog, and he would ask me if I was going to be okay, and after hearing "The Luckiest," I was able to tell him, "Yes. I will be fine. I have been loved."
That is what gets me through now, knowing that what killed him was frontal lobe damage from the radiation, no where near the tumor, but we were warned they could make no guarantees.
They don't even perform that type of radiation anymore. They learned so much from patients like my husband, who pretty much survived glioblastoma multiformas thanks to new chemotherapy treatments.
I was loved by the best.
I am the luckiest.