Build It Better.

 

There's a song that exists. 

"Build it Better."

"You can still see where the water was.
In a line at the top of the chimney bricks
Sometimes, something so broken can never be fixed.
So we saved a few things that were spared
And brought it to the ground
Cause you always build it better the second time around."

Sometimes I get to hear, from others, that I'm lucky that I don't have to deal with the issues that derive from divorce.  No custody sharing.  No parental disputing.  No "it's my holiday" fighting... 

No fighting.

And it's true. 

I guess it's luck.

You see...  There's this thing that happens though, when you bury someone that you built a life with.  There's this thing that happens...  and it's not luck. 

Absolutely everything reverts.

Dear Ken,

Guess what.  I did it.  Maybe you know that.  Maybe you don't.

I used to daydream, looking out into that vast blue sea, the kids were in the sand...  running...  laughing...  swimming, but I know you know that.  It's all I could ever bring myself to talk about.  Maybe that's when you realized I was simple...  or maybe that I wasn't.

But you died and I didn't.  There was no survivor's guilt, just total disbelief and complete awareness,  So I did it.  I bought the dream.  As much as your death was a disbelief, was as much as the fact that my dream was for sale.

There it was...  on that highway we took from our camping trip.  We could have never known, in that moment, that I would be here...  and you...   There.

Sometimes I sit and look out at the sea and I wonder about where you might be. 

They are getting so big and the noise in my head is so loud.  The conversations we shared regarding our first born behind the wheel of a car.

Guess what.  Our first born is behind the wheel of a car; and it is exactly as we feared it would be.

Chloe...  Chloe is every single bit as talented as we thought she might be and Abigail is every bit the IQ we suspected.

George is quickly becoming the boy we feared we'd never get to see.  He asked, just the other day, about what he might look like with a mustache...  and he loves the weather.  All of it.

You always wanted to show off your home in Florida to them.  I'm sorry.  You know what though, they sleep in those bunk beds you bought them.  And they know that you had them in mind when you picked them out.

We discussed colleges and what they might look like as they grew older.  It's better than the picture I had in my head and I wonder if you ever get to see them.

Mitchell is still mischievous and sometimes he gets bullied.  He's still so tiny.

I'm still raising them on my own.  That's nothing new.  The fact that they don't have you....

I revert back to our conversations every time I refused to move.  To the conversation of softening the blow for the divorce.  Which did not soften the blow for death.  Not for any of us.

Maybe you'll get another letter after college.  Or a wedding.  Or maybe not another ever again.

Just know this: 

Everything reverts.

When you spend 15 years building a life with someone...  life after death reverts.

Sometimes they miss you.  Sometimes they get a little lost.  Sometimes they get angry.  Sometimes they don't sleep.

For it was never a lack of love...  only a lack of keep.



"I drove past the place where we used to live.
Where you said you never wanted kids.
Sometimes something so broken can never be fixed.
I'm sleeping more and eating again.
I'm starting over like a factory town.
And you always build it better the second time around.

You always build it better the second time around."