A few years after my wife of 40 years died I drove from Boston to Portland, Oregon to visit old friends along the way. One of my friends and co-workers from 30 years before lived in Portland and invited me to stay with her. A year later she persuaded me to move to the continuing care retirement community where she was the counselor. It didn’t take much convincing since I was incredibly lonely and knew I had to make a major life change.
It was the summer of 2013. This was my first cross-country trip. It would have been our first cross-country trip too.
I was acutely aware that Betty should be next to me, her hair blowing in the open air, as we saw amazing vistas for the first time like snow-capped mountains appearing over the green summer landscape.
Each time I saw something that would have prompted me to say “wow, look at that” a felt a palpable sadness in my chest.
Then I came across this along Route 80 separating the road from the Great Salt Lake.
I had time to pull over, put the car in reverse and drive back to take these pictures and reflect on who wrote it and what they were experiencing at the time. Were they missing a loved one who they left behind or, like me, were they grieving the death of someone they missed everything about?
I put the top photo in a display of resident art n the senior community where I live with my title: Great Salt Lake, Sea of Tears. Today someone told how it moved them. I told them how much I wished I knew the back-story.
I decided to Google “I miss everything about you Great Salt Lake I-80” and was surprised to discover someone had similar feelings and started a Kickstarter campaign about public to help fund a project entitled “I miss everything about you” after seeing this graffiti.
They wrote:
In March of 2011, I was driving along a highway out by the Great Salt Lake. I looked out my passenger window and saw written on a concrete barrier at a rest stop the words: I MISS EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU. The gigantic letters were scrawled in black spray paint. I turned around at the next exit, took a picture, and went on my way. But, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
More here
Now I know that the message had been there for several years. Thankfully, nobody, had it removed. Perhaps you’ve seen it and if you took one, can post a new photo.
Hopefully, someone will read this who knows who wrote it or even wrote it themselves. It would be inspiring to hear the story of these power poignant words, graffiti art at its best.
Here’s a photo I took of myself on the trip using the timer on my camera.
Tomorrow diary online early tomorrow morning: A psychoanalytic perspective: Trump could be repressing homoerotic feelings towards Putin
Yesterday’s diary: Is Trump delusional or the poster-boy for confirmation bias?