O Fortuna

The last day of June is always a hard day for me, as that's the day John died. Yesterday marked ten years since his passing. It seems impossible to believe. And it seems impossible to believe that in December my daddy will have been gone twenty-four years. These two Johns are always with me.

I got through the day yesterday the best I have in the past ten years. It's the first time I haven't marked the day by doing something special or getting myself a little treat. (There simply was no time to do so.)

At rehearsal last night, when we started into Carmina Burana, Maestro Porco remarked about the music. "Whoever wrote this", he said, "was very angry".

O Fortune,
like the moon
you are changeable,
ever waxing
and waning;
hateful life
first oppresses
and then soothes
as fancy takes it;
poverty
and power
it melts them like ice.

. . .

Fate is against me
in health
and virtue,
driven on
and weighted down,
always enslaved.
So at this hour
without delay
pluck the vibrating strings;
since Fate
strikes down the string man,
everyone weep with me!

It felt quite ironic to me to be singing those words on the day that made me a widow at age 48. And at a time in my life where I'm starting to think I may be alone for the rest of my life. You can talk all you want about visualizations and affirmations, but there are also statistics. The number of men in my age group is far fewer than the number of women. And as the years pass, that disparity gets wider and wider. And the good ones? Well, I've already mentioned here that, for the most part, the good ones are recognizable by their wives and being hung-on-to for dear life.

So maybe I'm the Widow Grandma for the rest of my life, working hard to give all my kids a better life and make the world (or at least my corner of the world) a better place.

I had one really good marriage. I had one really good and loving husband. I had a truly happy marriage, if only for 27 months. Some people never get that much goodness and happiness.

(And the more people I meet, the more I hear about estranged children or families that never see each other. I realize I'm truly blessed to have children and grandchildren who treasure me and I them.)

So I look at the full moon each month and tell John I love him. And I put one foot in front of the other, trying to be a good citizen. And I try to keep the craziness that was caused by my upbringing under control.

Fate isn't so terrible. Life could be much worse than it is!

It's all relative.