Objects in the Rear View Mirror

A meditation on loss.

This is a photo of the frost patterns on the right rear view mirror of my husband's 2010 Chevy Impala that sits in our driveway; this car was the only thing he inherited when his father died. When we get cold nights, sometimes I go out in the morning to capture pictures of the designs left by the frost. It's more fun than it sounds; but hey, I AM easily amused by natural phenomena.

It's not like I think aliens are trying to communicate with us or anything, but there WAS a set of frost patterns last week that told an imaginary tale of lightning bolts that zotted down from Heaven, and the diaspora of the aliens who had to leave town because of it. Or at least that was MY interpretation.

I'm not sure that these patterns here have a tale to tell, except that I imagine frost as a bunch of CREATURES - Frost1, Frost2, Frost3, perhaps - tiny, wearing shiny outfits and zipping around wearing ice skates on a mirror made of ice, leaving tracks like these. The circles are where they spun! Hey, I calls it as I sees it!

I take a glance into the rear view mirror. I look back on my life now, and I consider all of the things I've lost in the past few years. A big sister, a cat, a car, a job, my parents (seven hours apart), quite a few other relatives along the way, some quite tragically. My life now barely resembles the life I had before. Sometimes that startles me and I feel disoriented. Who am I now that I have lost all of these things?

When my big sister died, I was still working, and taking the bus to town when the weather was bad. I used to cry all the time on the bus, quietly, just sitting, shaking, listening to my tunes box, looking out the window, in the in-between-times where grief finds its home. 

Now, since my parents died in late September, I sometimes cry on my walks. The big go-to cry song when big sister Barb died was the Wailin' Jennys' Boulder to Birmingham; when on campus, I used to hold onto the trees below Old Main and put the song on repeat, then just weep myself into exhaustion.

Now, my go-to cry song is Per Gessle & Agnes, with It Must Have Been Love. The other day, I played it six times on my walk, had a good cry, and then followed it up with a chaser of Rachel Platten's Fight Song, to put me in a more positive and can-do frame of mind for my return home. It helps if you stomp along: This is my FIGHT SONG! Take back my LIFE SONG! Yeah, I've got strategies. Music is a big one; it helps manage both my joy and my pain.

On the plus side, it's good being retired, though, and I love the life I have with my husband. We own our days. We are mostly happy, whenever we can be. We are together as much as we can be; we prefer it that way. We read a lot. We eat good things. We spend as much time OUTDOORS as we can, for I find healing there, in our woods and waters.

But sometimes I look back into the rear view mirror of my life, and I am amazed at it all. I guess that's all I wanted to say. I hope that I enjoyed all of those moments. I hope that I cherished all of those people, and creatures. I hope that I was grateful. I hope that I seized the day. 

My soundtrack song is Meat Loaf, with Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are. A few of the lyrics appear below.

But it was long ago, and it was far away
Oh God, it seems so very far
And if life is just a highway, then the soul is just a car
And objects in the rear view mirror may appear closer than they are