Today I found a tune on my iPod that I didn't realize I had. At work, I listen to my iPod almost all day (I can't when I'm in meetings), and today I played that tune over and over again:
Time, flowing like a river
Time, beckoning me
Who knows when we shall meet again
If ever
But time
Keeps flowing like a river
To the sea
Goodbye my love, Maybe for forever
Goodbye my love, The tide waits for me
Who knows when we shall meet again
If ever
But time
Keeps flowing like a river (on and on)
To the sea, to the sea
Till it's gone forever
Gone forever
Gone forevermore
Goodbye my friends, Maybe forever
Goodbye my friends, The stars wait for me
Who knows where we shall meet again
If ever
But time
Keeps flowing like a river (on and on)
To the sea, to the sea
Till it's gone forever
Gone forever
Gone forevermore
--"Time", The Alan Parsons Project
My husband, Old Abe, is quite a bit older than I am. And when I first re-heard (and really paid attention to) the lyrics of "Time", I realized that I could lose him any day. This man is one of the most wonderful, amazing people in the whole world, and I have no idea how I'd say goodbye to him.
As I kept playing the song over and over again, I began thinking about the horrific number of deaths in Iraq last year:
...the United Nations released its figure — 34,452 deaths, a number that does not yet include the December totals from all provinces — at least 70 more Iraqis were killed on Tuesday when a series of bomb blasts struck a largely Shiite university in northeast Baghdad.
I think about what it's going to be like when Old Abe is gone. The heart-wrenching loss of one of the most beautiful human beings I've ever met is going to be huge and devastating. It's going to change the landscape of my life forever, like a meteor leaving a crater.
And then I think about how that loss has been repeated over 34,000 times in Iraq, just last year alone. Mothers, sons, uncles, fathers, brothers, aunts, grandmothers, sisters, friends, nieces, grandfathers, neighbors, and nephews...lost forever in senseless violence.
When Old Abe is gone (or for that matter, when I am) I hope it's NOT because someone hated one of us to kill us, or because we were innocent bystanders to a mess that someone else created.
But Auntie is sad tonight. For all the time lost, and all of those who are lost to time.