In Aspen

            We got into Aspen Saturday, and so far, it has been incredible! The scenery is absolutely beautiful, the smell of snow and soil and pine is refreshing, and the skiing has been amazing. Well, for me, at least. Charlie’s been nabbed to stay behind with Marie (yes, she insisted she has to come with us even though she can’t do much), and Fred’s been staying on the easy slopes with Lucy, who only went skiing once when she was twelve. Hannah’s been splitting her time between shopping and skiing the intermediate slopes. I used to go skiing all the time, so I’ve been going on the expert trails alone for the most part, but I don’t mind. It’s nice to have a change of scenery and an activity I love to do.

            The only part that’s been a little strange for me is our hosts, Fred’s former business partners Ben and Harvey, and Harvey’s wife Lisa. Now don’t get me wrong, they’re wonderful people, and it’s nothing really about them. But Ben and Harvey aren’t just the people Fred became successful with, they’re his friends. When they picked us up from the airport, Fred’s face lit up and they all hugged like brothers, and even Lisa was greeted like a sister. Fred, Harvey, and Lisa all talked about people I didn’t know and memories I don’t share. And whenever these sorts of things have happened the past few days, I’ve wondered what it would have been like if I hadn’t given Fred up. If I might have been hugged and experienced their stories right along with them. So when I’m helping Lisa with a salad or pulled into small talk with Harvey, I can’t help but feel like I’ve missed out on something, a whole part of Fred’s life I might have been there for, but wasn’t.

            Of course, he never would have met Ben and Harvey if we’d gotten married, so I suppose I was never meant to be best friends with them anyway.

            In the evenings, after the outdoor activities are done and we’re all in the cabin, I’ve actually been spending my time with Ben. He came up to me rather shyly, at first, and said he’d been told that I loved music. When I confirmed it, he began to talk to me about some of his favorite musicians. When I said I wasn’t familiar with some of the artists he liked, he brought out his iPhone and began to play me some of his favorite songs. Now, everyone has their own taste in music which doesn’t always match up to mine, and that’s fine. There’s a lot of great music out there that isn’t my cup of tea. And sometimes I find myself listening to all of my sad songs. But Ben kept playing all of these 80s and some early 90s scream/rock/punk bands singing about misery and loneliness and death, which seemed odd to me, because Ben wears slacks and button-up-shirts and combs his hair and arranges the magazines on the coffee table neatly and in alphabetical order. The fact that he listens to that sort of stuff shocked me at first. I tried to be as polite as possible and say that I generally listened to different music, and volunteered to play some on the piano. He agreed to listen, and I picked some of the more up-beat tunes to play for him. He told me that I played very well, but didn’t say anything about the actual songs. 

            After, before going to bed, Harvey thanked me for talking to Ben. He then explained that Ben lost his fiancée a year ago. Fred, Harvey, and Ben had all been at a business meeting in New York, and while they were gone his fiancée had a brain aneurysm and which meant she died suddenly, and Ben would have never had the chance to say good-bye to her. Harvey said he was never a very social person before, and his loss had made him retreat even farther into himself. I can understand why this sort of music calls to him, but I don’t think that it’s very healthy for his situation. Sad songs, yes, they help, but lyrics so dark? And that being the only songs he really listens to?

            Last night we were able to talk again. I asked him why he felt inclined to listen to the music he did, and he told me about his love for this particular kind of music. He said that these songs don’t hold back anything, but get to the deepest part of the human soul and speaks of what it feels. I didn’t want to put him off (people are very stubborn about the music they like) and so I agreed, but asked him if listening to this sort of music all the time was healthy. I admitted to listening to a sad song or two when feeling down, but that if I ever wanted to feel better about my situation, I had to turn to different music to feel hope again. He said, in an almost jealous way, “You must not have felt deep pain yet, then, and for that, you should be grateful.”

            I told him my mother died and the only man I ever loved is lost to me forever. He actually took my hand then and apologized, then asked me what songs I listened to to ease my pain. Knowing his situation, I pulled up “To Where You Are” by JoshGroban. It’s a song I listened to a lot after my mom died, and he seemed to really enjoy it, and kept on listening to it. I discovered he’s more interested in the lyrics of a song than the actual style of it, and those lyrics truly struck a chord with him.

            He’s a very sensitive man. I wish I knew what to say. But I know from experience that nothing you can say will make it better when you’re hurting. After my mom died, everyone said that they were sorry, and after a while this phrase seemed hollow and helpless. Or they told me she was in a better place, or she was still looking out for me, told me it would be okay. Or talked about how these hard times in our life were an opportunity for us to grow. But those words never did provide me any comfort. It was Fred, actually, who was the only one who said anything right about my mom. When we were on our second date and my mom’s death was brought up, he just said, “That must hurt you.”

            With pain, no words trying to brush it aside or ease it will ever help. Only having someone admit to you that the pain is justified, that you ought to feel it, will create any sense of release. It won’t fix it, but sometimes we’re so pressured to be happy all the time, to never let anything take us down, we forget that things will happen and we will hurt. Time makes it better, though some things will never stop hurting, like my mom. Or even Fred.

            Still, we do have to move on eventually. We can’t let the pain take over our lives and stop us from living. And that part, that’s always the hardest—moving on, because that means it’s over.