I remember that song.....
Let me tell you a story about yesterday. I was standing on the Route 9P bridge over Fish Creek in Saratoga Springs. The rain was pouring down on my head as I waited for my son's Crew shell to come through. All I could think about was Liz and just how depressed I was feeling at the time. I walked over to find out why he hadn't come through yet (it was at least half an hour late). My cell phone rang. My daughter Julie, who had just gotten her driver's license two weeks ago, was crying into the phone that she had just been rearended. I was 30+ miles away and had a kid rowing that had no cell phone, I couldn't leave. As I'm getting ready to cross the road a major a*****e in a Saratoga Springs Sheriff's Deputy uniform yells to me "if you cross the road there I am going to arrest you". Got into a pretty heated argument with this 23 year old "authority" figure that the Sheriff finally calmed down. After another 20 minutes of searching I found out that the boat had just gotten in the water. I go back up onto the bridge.
Standing there waiting for the boat I start talking to a couple from Buffalo that have three girls racing. They've been married 20 years, while all of their friends have separated or divorced or gone through some other hell. It sounds like my life all over again. The clouds start to part and the sun starts shining. Julie calls back that the police have finished up, nobody's hurt, the car is drivable. Lou's boat comes through way ahead of the next boat in line. In a matter of about an hour I'd gone from the deepest despair I'd felt in five and a half months to something approaching elation. All because I struck up a conversation with a couple of strangers.
That's what this forum is to me, a bunch of strangers that at one time several months ago I reached out to in my deepest despair and found sympathetic and loving souls ready and willing to ease my pain. I really can't begin to express how much this forum has meant to me since Liz died. Kay Marie is one of several members here that I consider a TRUE friend. We really can't let a couple of bad incidents take this resource away from the next PALS, CALS, widow or widower. You just never know when the next person coming on to the forum is going to become the next "Extremely Helpful Member" for someone like me.
Thank you, Kay Marie and all of you who have helped me get through the last 5 1/2 months.
Dick