Riding for the Feeling
Sometimes I play a stupid game with our iPod. I put it on shuffle and ask Matt to send me a song.
I know it’s ridiculous. I know ‘shuffle’ is a piece of apple software – an algorithm – rather than the ghostly hand of my husband reaching out to send me a sign. I know in these moments I’m a mad woman clutching for evidence of something beyond death. But it’s surprising how often something meaningful comes up. Of course it does. It’s our iPod. It’s full of music and memories. What’s a little more strange is the raft of new albums Matt bought in June last year, just days before he died. He never mentioned them. Just downloaded them and left them there for me to find. This morning I played the iPod game and the track that arrived was Bill Callahan’s ‘Riding for the Feeling’ from the Apocalypse album. It’s one that Matt bought in his last download session. I hadn’t heard it before, but the first lines, as they came through the speakers, stopped me in my tracks:
It’s never easy to say goodbye
To the faces
So rarely do we see another one
So close and so long
It’s a really beautiful song. As I listened, it made me think of many things. I saw my son’s joyful face as he flies along on his bicycle … my husband emerging from the waves after a surf or a swim, drenched and happy … and my daughter on a swing giggling, ‘Higher, Mummy, higher.’ All of them ‘riding for the feeling’. It also made me think about goodbyes, and how hard they are. There is an intense, bittersweet longing that comes now with a farewell. I say ‘I love you’ a little more frequently, a little more easily. And thinking about goodbyes, I was reminded of a piece of writing, The Light that Shines When Things End, featured on one of my favourite blogs. It starts with these words: ‘I hope that in the future they invent a small golden light that follows you everywhere and when something is about to end, it shines brightly so you know it’s about to end.’ I like the idea of this light — of being able to consciously appreciate the final moments of something for the last time. But the thought of it also terrifies me. If it had shone on that last morning with Matt, I know I never would’ve been able to let him go.
Don’t go.
Don’t go.
Don’t go.
Don’t go.
All this leaving is never-ending.
This week is the one-year anniversary of Matt’s death. Anniversary feels an odd word to use in this context. His death date is one of pain. There is nothing to celebrate. We have endured a year without him. We are still here. Yet somehow it feels important to acknowledge the day. I plan to greet the sun at the ocean’s edge and will be hoping for clear skies that night so that the kids might look at the star named for their Dad (by a very thoughtful friend: thank you Vanessa) through the Observatory telescope. I hope we are able to ride the big feelings the day will bring us. I know we’re still learning how to say goodbye to a face we were lucky to see, so close and so long. And I suppose whether there is a small golden light or not, it doesn’t really matter. Bill Callahan is right: when goodbye comes, it’s never easy.