It doesn't end, does it?

There are just longer breaks between it.  It.  The sneak grief attack.  It happened again today.  Why today?  Why not?  I am subtly aware that 25 years ago today we moved into our beautiful home in California.  The home that was filled with life, love, joy and grief and sorrow and recovery.  And I am glad to have let it go.  Today it was music.  Don't Stop by Fleetwood Mac.  The signature song of RuMoRs.  The song they closed with at every gig.  It snuck up on me.  The wailing cry coming deep from within, the expulsion of all of the feeling mixed together--the missing, the fear of the future, the frustration with my misbehaving heart, the letting go, the surrender, again.  Then the hour spent searching desperately through files to find a recording of a gig with Don't Stop. I wanted to hear HIM counting in the band and hear HIM play the finale with the final crash on the cymbal.  In my mind's eye I could see him grabbing the edge of the crash to quiet it, leaning forward over his snare looking at his band mates with that smile, drench in sweat.  The exchanges between them, enveloped in the bliss of having come together to play an awesome gig, each giving from the depth their soul to an appreciative audience, happy and smiling from an evening on the dance floor.  The exhilaration and the exhaustion in his stance.  But most of all the joy and the contentment of doing what he loved.  

There was nothing left to do but break down.  I would dismantle the sound system, wrapping cords--the one's with the green tape were ours, the ones with the blue tape were Dave's, the one's with red tape were Bruce's (is that right?), collecting the snake and winding it back into its black and yellow box until the next gig.  Tom breaking down the drum kit, putting the hardware and stands into their rolling case, the cymbals (the crash, the splash, the ride, the gong and the high hat) into their case, and stacking the drums for me to put into their cases once the sound board and all of the pieces were packed up. I had a system for putting each drum into its individual case, with a minimal of wrestling between drum and case and me.  Tom would load the car, there an order to that as well.  Everything had to go in a specific way in the game of Tetris to get all of the piece into the Jeep and later the CRV.  I would drive home, Tom being so tired from playing.  They say that drummers are elite athletes given how physical it is to play with all four limbs doing something different.  It was usually a short drive home where we would unload everything into the garage (also known as the drum storage room) and yes, there was a technique for how things were put away.  We'd let Zora out for her nighttime zoomies, she had been alone all evening and had energy to expend.  Once inside, we would partake of our traditional post-gig snack of White Castle sliders, potato chips and Trader Joe's dill pickles. As we ate, with Zora giving us the death stare waiting on a chip, we would discuss the gig, who had missed a cue, how the band sounded in the back of the house, and could everyone hear their monitors?  And then we would head to bed, tired and sore and spent, together, looking forward to doing it all again on another night in another venue.

Oh how I miss these times, the being a part of, doing what I could, watching and supporting the band to be the best they could be on any given night.