Somebody to Love

When George was alive there were lots and lots of times I felt lonely or depressed. Loving someone and being loved back doesn’t save you from hard times, though I guess I used to dream it would. I’ve always had a tendency to be melancholy, can be a bit of a hermit, been told I can be hard to love.

George and I had our differences. We could get a good fight going and neither of us was one to back down. When I’ve been wronged I want an apology, and George never liked to give them. He was a loner and I wanted to hang out with him a lot, I’m sure I bugged the hell out of him with that. In our new life, Lily and I are circling each other like newly introduced jungle cats. She has claws, and she can really take a piece out of me (and Sara.)

Two of a kind

Usually, Lily is so gregarious and happy I always think of her as a “mutant”, not exactly of me or of George, but a new species. (Though she often looked so much like him that I joked I wanted a DNA test.) But these days she’s angry and she can get really mean when she feels pushed. When she is angry she lashes out, and she’s got great aim. She’s hurt my feelings every day a couple of times since George died.

“When the chips are down, its Mama she wants,” George would say sort of sadly when Lily would run for me after an accident. He wanted her to turn to him with scraped knees and disappointments more often. She came to me because I was always there, that’s what I told him, and it was true. These days, she’s no longer freely offering her feelings to me, so when she does I try to accept them politely and not push too hard for more.

Loving George was not for the impatient. He moved slow, except when he was mad. He could pop off in anger and shock the heck out of me with a bellow or a smartass remark, but everything else between us moved at a glacial pace. Weeks after I made an offhand comment to him he would bring it up in conversation like it just happened, obviously feeling hurt by what I had said and quickly forgotten.

I’ve mentioned his amazing memory. He remembered everything in detail and would often open up a discussion examining a disagreement from years earlier. “Huh?!!” was my common response on that. I’m an in the now girl. I can hardly remember breakfast, so when he brought up my exact words from years earlier I could get very frustrated. (“In the Now  Girl,” that’s what they’ll call me at the nursing  home. Ha!)

So who would have figured that Lily, who talks constantly, is absolutely direct and absolutely confident she is loved, would turn out “when the chips are down,” to be so much like her daddy? I’ve been worried so much about her these months. She hasn’t said much about him except tiny little exchanges. All of a sudden this week she has started letting things out, and oh, how she reminds me of him when she does.

Crazy dress up day

Last night we were watching “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.” She’s looked forward to it and wanted to watch it as a group, so all of us sat down to oblige. She snuck up and cuddled up to me and said, “Dad would like this movie. He would have loved it.” I agreed. Then she just started talking. “He would have loved to see me on crazy dress up day,” she said with a little smile I’d never seen on her face before. I guess it was… regretful. “He would have loved to see me at Christmas. He missed Christmas morning,” Little tiny tears were popping out of her eyes, not falling, but squirting out under great pressure.

I know that kind of crying. George did it. The very few times I saw him cry he cried like that. I always thought it was like the tears were jumping ship because they couldn’t stand to be in there anymore. When his friend from high school, Richard Beaver,  died, George cried like that. But not until about four months after, and only for one night. He told me and Shirley all about Dick and his heart was broken, that was clear. Then he packed up his tears and he didn’t let on about his pain anymore. If I hadn’t seen him cry I would never have known how upset he was about his friend.

George took love very seriously. He didn’t do it much, he was particular with who he trusted with his love.

His favorite song was “Somebody to Love,” and once he told me that and I listened to the song (knowing him better) I realized that George was on a quest throughout his life to find acceptance and true connection and he wasn’t easily fooled about either thing.

Can anybody find me somebody to love?
Each morning I get up I die a little
Can barely stand on my feet
Take a look in the mirror and cry
Lord what you’re doing to me
I have spent all my years in believing you
But I just can’t get no relief, Lord!
Somebody, somebody
Can anybody find me somebody to love?

I work hard every day of my life
I work till I ache my bones
At the end I take home my hard earned pay all on my own -
I get down on my knees
And I start to pray
Till the tears run down from my eyes
Lord – somebody – somebody
Can anybody find me – somebody to love?

(He works hard)

Everyday – I try and I try and I try -
But everybody wants to put me down
They say I’m goin’ crazy
They say I got a lot of water in my brain
Got no common sense
I got nobody left to believe
Yeah – yeah yeah yeah

Oh Lord
Somebody – somebody
Can anybody find me somebody to love?

Got no feel, I got no rhythm
I just keep losing my beat
I’m ok, I’m alright
Ain’t gonna face no defeat
I just gotta get out of this prison cell
Someday I’m gonna be free, Lord!

Find me somebody to love
Can anybody find me somebody to love?

“Tell Rachel to take his pillow and wrap it up so we don’t lose the smell,” (My friend is making Lily a quilt with George’s things. I think she sort of thought his pillow was going to be part of it.) “I want to sleep with it, but I don’t want to take off the smell,” she said with her new little smile. “I want to send up balloons with pictures of me at my prom, but I don’t think he really sees the balloons,” she said. Ping, ping, ping. Little teeny teers crashed into my shoulder. “Balloons don’t really work, do they?”

Oh God. I’d rather do just about anything than tell her no, including pack up this house and move.

She went on and on, mentioning all the things that she’s been holding in. Most of her comments were about events he’s missed. I listened and tried to respect her needs. (I wanted to hug her, she wanted to sit across from me.) We got through it, but I must admit I needed the hug.

“He’ll never know Isaiah loves me,” she sighed. “He’ll miss my wedding.” Isaiah gave her her first Christmas present from a boy. It was a Bacugon and some cherry chap stick. I’m sort of glad George missed that. It would have freaked him out, the chap stick part, anyway. “He thinks I’m girlyand boy-y,” she giggled when she brought it home. “He loves me so bad.”

When I was little and someone I loved hurt me in some way, I would wish I could figure out how to stop loving them so they couldn’t hurt me anymore. I never figured out a way to succeed with that. We still love the  ones we love, there’s no getting out of it. Lily is going to have to bear loving and missing George for the rest of her life, and so am I. She’s going to have to figure out how to find more people to love in her life, how to pick them, how to lose them.

I’m pretty sure Isaiah is not going to be “the one” no matter how “bad” he loves her. If she’s as much like George as I think she must be, she’s going to have a lot more people love her than she loves herself, because she’s going to look deep and only accept the love that comes with more action than words. It’s a secret he taught me, and one I wish I’d learned earlier, because I now know that choosing love wisely is the most important thing when building a life.

I used to ask George occasionally if he loved me, not because I was afraid he didn’t, but because I liked to make him say it. “Yes, I love your ass,” he would growl. “I think I prove that every day!”

I used to think that response was painfully unromantic, but I don’t anymore.

Proof of love every day.

I miss it so much. And so does Lily.

Related posts:

1. Who Do You Love?
2. Down and Dirty
3. Mother’s Work
4. Living Between Two Worlds
5. Comfort and Joy

Tagged as: children dealing with grief, crying, george maddox, grief, lily maddox, lisa maddox, love, saddness after death, SARA BYRD, widow