So today I did the thing that I thought would comfort me most, I drove out to New Jersey to visit her grave. What I forgot to take into account, however, was that our region recently received the first significant (and then some) snow fall of the winter. Normally this wouldn't have made a difference but, as anyone who has been to the cemetery or read my postings about it knows, Karen and James do not have a headstone. Rather, their grave is marked with a bronze plaque in the ground. This has made my prior visits a bit more calming by not standing among the rows and rows of granite stones, but this trip it made it impossible to locate the grave. Even with a map and directions provided by the cemetery staff, I spent about an hour plodding around Section 14 and digging repeatedly into calf-deep snow. All with no success. Instead, I sat for some time on a small stone bench.
Instead of the comfort I thought would come from visiting the cemetery, I felt sadness and a sense of failure for not being able to locate the plaque and grave. I could appreciate it wasn't necessarily a rational feeling - failure, that is - because even with a precise knowledge of the cemetery section, with so much snow it would still be exceedingly difficult to find it. But it was no less rational for me to think like this than it is for me to feel (as I do sometimes) that I in some way failed in my duties and responsibilities as a husband for not protecting her, even though there was nothing I could have done. So there I sat. In the cold. Alone.
When I got back in my car to leave, the radio station was in the middle of a block of Beatles music. Two songs came on back to back (I think, for I was in a bit of a trance), from which I found some of the sought after comfort. They were "In My Life," from Rubber Soul, followed by "The End," which closes Abbey Road. Both have lyrics that resonated very strongly in me and which were only accentuated by where I was and what I had just gone through searching for Karen's grave. Every lyric of "In My Life" struck a chord with me (pardon the pun), but most significant was:
But of all these friends and lovers
there is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
And having the moment punctuated with "The End's" haunting and iconic words, And in the end / The love you take / Is equal to the love you make, nearly brought me to tears but with a slight smile on my face. Though these songs were written decades ago, I heard the words anew. We certainly gave and received equal amounts of love, but for far far to short of time.
So as this second birthday without celebration draws to a conclusion, and I look ahead to tackle tomorrow and the tomorrows to come, I smile knowing Karen is looking over me and that we truly had something special.
Happy Birthday Karen. In my life, I love you more.
