It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday

As much as I don't want to fixate on sadness and death, I guess it's what's up for me right now so I might as well let the music speak what it is here to say. Today I just keep hearing this beauty by Boyz II Men:

How do I say goodbye to what we had?
The good times that made us laugh
Outweigh the bad.

I thought we'd get to see forever
But forever's gone away
It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday...

I'm guessing there are a lot of reasons this one is coming up for me today. As I prepare for my reunion with my summer camp flame, memories of that time are surfacing. The first time I heard this song was at a funeral for one of the kids from camp. He drowned (not while at camp), and a few of us went to his funeral in Chicago's inner-city. It was heartbreaking. And beautiful. I was one of four white people there, and I learned a lot that day about grief and what it looks like when it's allowed to come out unrestrained. It's a bit scary, like a big storm, and similarly refreshing at the same time. People were yelling at the body (the casket was open even though he'd drowned and looked much different from the 13-year old kid I'd known), asking why he had to leave, telling him to wake up, touching him, and wailing. Afterward, we just kept listening to this song over and over again. The other kids from camp told me God had a reason for taking him that day, and I saw that they really believed that and were comforted by it. I could only feel the loss.

Of course, my Uncle's death is on the radar too and part of the reason for the selection.

Also, as I mentioned in a previous post, August 19 is the anniversary of my friend's death, and I seem to have lost a couple of other friends from the same era (college) along with her. That's hard to accept, but talking with my friend last night who two years ago had a baby who lived for only one day, I understood that grief changes people. And there's not much you can do about that except try not to need things to be other than they are, and do what this song suggests:

And I'll take with me the memories
To be my sunshine after the rain
It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday...

Oh, and check out these dudes from South Korea harmonizing this tune. As far as I can tell, nothing is lost in translation. I guess grief really is universal.