A few days ago, Kate & I were making dinner. She was prepping stuff for shrimp tacos, except for shelling the shrimp — because that was my job. We were listening to music as we almost always do while cooking.
Luke Combs’ cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” came on. That 35-year-old song recently won Song of the Year awards at the CMAs, with Tracy making history as the first Black songwriter to ever win that award. It’s also a song that I — we, as a family — associate very much with my sister Sharon. I said that Sharon would have loved that… and, boy, I sure do miss her…
And all of a sudden, I found myself crying into a half-peeled bowl of shrimp! “It’s sneaky grief,” I said to Kate, thinking (as I always do) of my friend Carole who told me about that phenomenon.
Sneaky grief can happen any time and any place — it’s found me at the grocery store! It’s been a while, actually, but it makes sense that it would creep up now. It’s been almost 13 years since Sharon died, that was an intense four months…
I don’t know why it seems a little tougher this year — maybe because it’s a “big” birthday year, another one that Sharon couldn’t celebrate with me, and another that she will never see herself.
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Grief can be sneaky, and catch up to you any time and any place. Both John and I lost our parents when our kids were relatively young and they used to feel bad about crying at inopportune times and places. I used to tell them that it just showed how much they loved the people that have died, and that love never goes away.
I find grief to ALWAYS be sneaky. But…if also makes me feel alive…kinda hard to explain that one. Also, I love that song!
Vicki! You fell of my blog feeds a while back but here you are, posting all the time and I’ve been missing it. I’m so happy to know you’re still here. I’m sorry about the sneaky grief but I sure get it. Just last week I was talking with Dale about my brother, Douglas. He’s been gone for 26 years and I suddenly found myself crying and missing him in a way that felt very fresh. I guess it shows how much we loved them and still do.
I hear you loud and clear. It happens to me, usually when I hear a song or watch a movie that I associate with my father, whom I miss every single day. Life and loving is the best and the hardest.
Agree with you about sneaky grief. I also think of it like standing at the ocean’s edge…waves come and recede. And the tide waxes and wains.
That song….I love both versions. But oh my, they are ear worms….those guitar cords, over and over.
Oh, sneaky grief. It gets me so very often. I never fight it . . . (And . . . THAT SONG. It is just so, so good.)