I used to be 24 years outdated when the primary boyfriend, Ok, I’d ever had was run over by a truck.
He’d dumped me a number of months earlier for a woman with a Highway Runner tattoo, however I used to be deep within the throes of obsession and nonetheless considered us as a pair.
I had zero clue that he was an alcoholic, one thing I came upon after the accident when one in all our coworkers talked about that Ok would often drink a six-pack of beer after work.
That’s how his automotive ended up wedged below a semi. The police didn’t trouble charging him with DUI as a result of he suffered a life-altering mind damage.
I used to be wiped from Ok’s thoughts, however he wasn’t wiped from mine. My recollections have been intact, and I had mementos.
Merriam-Webster defines a memento as “one thing that serves to warn or remind.”
That bit about “to warn” is attention-grabbing, because it turned out that each individual I used to be concerned with after Ok was an addict of 1 type or one other.
I nonetheless have the letter he wrote to me one evening when he was working the third shift on the manufacturing facility the place we met. He was extremely humorous — bizarre, off-kilter humor like mine.
And Ok lived for music. He wished to be a DJ on the radio.
I knew issues have been going downhill when he informed me one morning over breakfast that he “wouldn’t be capable of help me” as a disc jockey, and that’s why I couldn’t go to Colorado with him. I didn’t perceive why he thought I’d must be “supported,” however after all, that was simply an excuse.
Ok made me a mixtape that I additionally nonetheless have, filled with songs that meant one thing to him.
I’d solely heard one or two of them earlier than. However after all, I listened to them backward and forwards till they have been part of me.
The tape had two sides. He’d named them “Songs to Take heed to Quietly within the Darkish,” and “Vibrant Lights, White Noise, Screams You Can Style.”
There was Lou Reed’s “Final Nice American Whale”; “Software Grasp of Brainerd by Journey Shakespeare” (probably my favourite track of all time); “Angie” (I knew that one).
And “The Final Resort,” sung by The Eagles.
After I heard concerning the Maui wildfires, I immediately considered the lyrics to “The Final Resort,” a protracted, elegiac ode to California written by Don Henley and Glenn Frey.
The track doesn’t get a number of airplay, regardless that it’s from one of many best-selling albums of all time, Lodge California.
You’ll be able to go away all of it behind
Sail to Lahaina
Similar to the missionaries did
So a few years in the past
Lahaina. Paradise. And now it was gone. I’d by no means get to see it the best way it was, simply as I’d by no means see Ok once more the best way he was earlier than the accident.
Lahaina was gone, Ok was gone, and I had didn’t heed the warning of these mementos I carried with me from place to position like cursed objects.
That is the final stanza of “The Final Resort”:
They name it paradise
I don’t know why
You name someplace paradise
Kiss it goodbye
That is the warning that no person heeds. That is it. That is paradise — our lives, our world, and all of the individuals in it.
Bev Potter is an Ohio-based author all in favour of well being, humor, and leisure.
This text was initially printed at Medium. Reprinted with permission from the writer.
