Honey

This song hits home in more than one way.

I think of my ex-wife, who was kind of dumb and kind of smart. Innocent. And kind. And tolerant. Always trying to soothe me. Until our 13-year-old daughter died. I know now that she had a nervous breakdown that day – probably deep depression or complicated grief, in the clinical terms. And she changed after that. I wanted my old wife, but she really couldn’t fulfill my needs any more. And one day she simply ran away, leaving me and our (surviving) kids behind in shock.

Just as the singer has, I still feel longing for her, the one who was kind of dumb and kind of smart, the one who was there before our daughter died. I have regrets, just as he does. That I could have kept things together if I had reacted differently and better when she retreated into herself after our daughter died. The thoughts of the good times before our daughter died - like the good times that he mentions.

And the tree. We planted one down by the river as a memorial to our daughter not long after she died. Within a couple weeks, a record flood washed it away, creating more turmoil. But this mostly makes me think of past failure, and of a love lost as lives abruptly changed.