Memory Lane

Sitting with grief without losing myself

I’ve heard it said that grief can rear its ugly head years, even decades after the fact. Knowing that, at times, has been my saving grace. I’m not sure when grief recently surfaced but I will just pick the moment I became aware of it.

Several weeks ago someone mentioned a new Billy Joel documentary on HBO. His music was a big part of my childhood in the 70’s and 80’s and I was eager to watch it. I reveled for weeks over the 5 hour long documentary and have loved reliving and remembering music from the past.

Every morning I’ve woken up with one of his songs in my head:

Some folks like to get away / Take a holiday from the neighborhood / Fly off to Miami Beach or Hollywood / But I’m taking a Greyhound / On the Hudson River Line

It’s been fun. I can remember the cover of The Stranger - Billy Joel curled up on a bed, staring at a mask sitting on the pillow next to him? Oh, that used freak me out. And the music video for “Pressure” scared the bejeezus out of me. But as I watched and listened and took it all in I was struck by what an amazing musician he is. As a kid I took it for granted, but as an adult I’m speechless.

“Italian Restaurant” reminds me of Wilmington, Delaware where I grew up. Listening to it transports me to Union Street - Union and Pennsylvania to be exact. Don’t ask me why. There was a donut shop there we used to go to. In fact, in early summer of 1981 we stoped there when we were moving to Texas, our blue station wagon full of our stuff. We hopped out thinking we’d grab some donuts to celebrate hitting the road only to return to find the the keys locked in the car. Perhaps it was an omen.

I remember it like it was yesterday. I also remember feeling as if it was my fault. It’s funny how that happens. I was a kid and yet my dad’s shame was my shame. His self-loathing my self-loathing. Only now I realize how angry I was at him, how, to my young self he ruined the moment. But all these years later I know a deeper truth: he never wanted to go in the first place. It was a power struggle my mom won: move to Texas to be closer to her family.

Honesty is such a lonely word / Every one is so untrue / Honesty is hardly ever heard / And mostly what I need from you

I don’t remember what happened next or how we got the door unlocked. Something tells me a wire hanger or a slim jim. But eventually we got back in the car, our donuts probably eaten, and started our Texas adventure, only to have it fall apart.

We were back in Delaware a year later, over off Dupont Road near Lancaster Pike. In high school I’d meet friends for breakfast at a diner on Union Street, fill up my car at a station on Greenhill Ave, and stop at Wawa after school for a sandwich. Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits played non-stop. I even brought the box into the bathroom when I showered. I saw him twice in Philly at the Spectrum my Junior year in high school.

He says, “Son can you play me a melody / I’m not really sure how it goes / But it’s sad and it’s sweet and I knew it complete / When I wore a younger man’s clothes”

I’m so amazed at what happens when I look back, when I pull a thread only to see it unravel in jarring ways. I’m not always sure who’s life I was living, mine or my parent’s, mine or my brother’s. I was like a sponge soaking it all in. Was I feeling my feelings or noticing theirs?

Yesterday I listened to a podcast, the host and the guest both survivors of childhood trauma. As I listened I felt that unmistakable bond you feel when you can relate, when you know. I had to sit down for a moment, acknowledge the emotion. I wanted to be with them, be part of the conversation, be with my people.

The Big Book says addiction is cunning and powerful and I think that’s the best way to describe childhood trauma. Especially when it’s covert and buried. When others, who were there, guard it with malice.

Denial is fierce.

As I take a trip down memory lane, remembering the old markers of my hometown, emotions trickle up like bubbles moving through molasses. The Smoke Shop across from Trolly Square. The ice cream shop we’d go to after school, carpool, the ACME grocery store, Italian water ice on a hot summer night.

My brother thought every man in a camel-hair trench coat was in the mob. He’d quickly point a finger, but my dad would grab it, lean in irritated, and tell him to keep his voice down.

Music gets into your bones, into your flesh, and it stirs. It moves things around. Your past is like a lava lamp of emotion just sitting there, waiting.

Remember Charlie, remember Baker / They left their childhood on every acre / And who was wrong? And who was right? / It didn’t matter in the thick of the fight

I guess you get the good with the bad. Or maybe there’s no difference. Maybe grief is just part of the beauty of life, of being here, walking through this long strange trip with the people we love. I don’t mind grief anymore. As a young adult it was overwhelming but these days it’s like an old familiar friend. And maybe it’s not something heavy and uncomfortable. Maybe grief just lets me know I’ve lived, that I’ve been, and am, and (hopefully) will continue to be.

So I will share this room with you / And you can have this heart to break / And so it goes, and so it goes / And you’re the only one who knows