Why

My XM is playing "Why" by Annie Lennox.

That song brings back to mind the summer of '94.
It was a summer of confusion and hope,
Love lost and love found,
The closing out of old parts of my life
and the opening of doors to a new life.

My wife of 26 years and I decided to divorce that spring.
It was the Tuesday after Easter.

It happens to lots of us.

Only days later I reconnected with Nancy, whom I had first met in 1991.
She was still single,
living in New Jersey.

After a glorious week in Jamaica
we spent the summer traversing the New Jersey Turnpike from DC to NJ
to spend glorious weekends floating on a sea of love.

I never knew New Jersey could be so beautiful.

Finding love again after all those years.

Nancy had the CD of "Diva" by Annie Lennox,
which I copied onto cassette tape to play in my aged Volvo on my 4-hour trips back & forth.

Hearing those songs now returns part of me to that place and time.

It seems like so long ago,
and yet sometimes it seems just like yesterday.

Leukemia took Nancy in April 2003.

Suzanne came into my life two months later,
bringing her own symphonies into my heart.

I know that now is now,
and then was then.

But when I hear those songs,
I can feel a certain moisture
gathering in my eyes.