Good Grief

You can tell Joe Biden has felt horrible grief. It’s hard to fake sincerity and you can see the pain in his eyes and hear it in his voice when he speaks of his son and his first wife.

And of course, no one has cornered the market on grief. Life is long (if you’re lucky) but it brings definite heartache to all of you actually do it right.

Thing about grief is that it comes out of nowhere sometimes and it can hammer you.

Friday morning was an odd one. I had written the blog about my Dad and it was fun to remember the funny stories.

Then my sister, Carrie commented on it, and I was driving to Syracuse. I re-read what I wrote and here came the Big G.

Just like that.

I could almost hear Dad’s voice, and see his smile as he laughed.

Tears filled my eyes and I swallowed hard to keep it together.

I turned up the radio to try and block out some of the sadness...

...and there was a freaking Doobie Brothers song on!

I haven’t heard a Doobies Brothers song in a long time.

It was followed by Supertramp “It’s raining again.”

That was a song that I actually heard my Dad sing, in San Francisco, because it rained for about ten straight days.

Dad didn’t listen to a lot of Rock & Roll (think Sinatra and Dino) but he did like Mark Knopfler’s guitar skills, Springsteen (later on in life), and Supertramp.

“Did you know those guys were all professionally trained?” He asked me once.

I was blown away.

Those were the first two songs I heard after I was upset?

I texted Carrie to share it with her.

“He’s hanging out with you today,” Carrie said.

And I felt better.

Good grief.