video

Never underestimate how important video is. We all know to take plenty of pictures of loved ones but, at least in my life, video hasn't been all that important.

I remember once Taz and I were watching a TV show about the home movies of the Kennedy family and he turned to me and said "we really should take more videos because these are priceless memories." And I totally agreed with him.

And we never did it.

After he died I was really sorry that we didn't have any videos because it meant I would never hear his voice again. Then a couple of little miracles happened.

I was at his former office and his partner asked if I'd ever seen the Tesla video.

Excuse me, WHAT Tesla video?

Oh my gosh, I couldn't believe it when I saw it. It was taken in late summer or early fall of 2018 so it was very recent. Taz was driving his partner's new Tesla...or it was driving him. I remember him telling me about that day. Even though it's very short, it means the world to me.

Then a couple of weeks later the daughter of a friend sent me a video that Taz and I had made to wish her mother a happy mother's day in the summer of 2017. Taz doesn't talk much on this video, only at the very end but it's just so him, especially right at the end.

These two tiny little videos are like gold to me. I'm putting them here because I was searching for them earlier today and couldn't find them right away and feared I'd somehow lost them. So now I have documented them in yet another location so that they don't disappear.

Right now seeing Taz on the screen seems very familiar to me. Even though I haven't seen or spoken to him in over a year, I swear it feels like just yesterday. But maybe that won't always be the case, maybe there will come a day when I start to forget what he sounded like but I'll always be able to come here and remember again.

It's weird, seeing and hearing him brings this bizarre mixture of pleasure and pain. I've missed his voice so much so I'm thrilled the first time I watch the video but repeated viewings leave me feeling sad and unsatisfied. I want to see more, hear more, hold a conversation as if this were Skype not just a video.

Is this overwhelming grief something unique to losing a loved one to death or do divorced people feel this way too...like they're just never going to get over this? Is there ever going to be a day that I don't dissolve in tears thinking about him?

I once saw a movie or TV show about someone that wanted to use a machine to erase all memories of their loved one because it just hurt too much. I do understand the inclination because I'm left wondering if this pain will destroy me one day but I can't imagine having no memories of him or our full, wonderful life together. I wouldn't even want to lose the painful, hurtful memories (and there were more than a few) because that's the truth of our life. To not remember even a part of it would be a greater tragedy than losing him was. 

But I kind of would like to stop crying.