This song, written by Carol King and performed by James Taylor ( they both recorded it but I always liked the James Taylor version best) closely reflects the relationship between Edna and myself during our two year courtship. It seemed to fit both our histories at the time.
Edna was four years my senior and had just been through a very difficult marriage when we first met. For some reason I still don't quite understand we gravitated toward each other almost as though some mysterious force was pulling us together.
Having both been through rough times, neither was ready to use the 'L' word. We did become very close friend rather quickly. We spent two years together almost daily before decideing that marriage would work between us. She would say later that we spent two years negotiating an arrangement to which both us us would be willing to commit. I think however, that we both new rather quickly that we would eventually marry.
Right up to and including the first few years of our marriage we would refuse to use the 'L' word for fear that it might prove disastrous to our relationship. We were friends and that was enough. Over the years love grew between us and we could openly express it without fear.
My need was to have someone to care for the children and hers was for companionship. Our marriage was born out of our specific needs and the deep appreciation we each had for who the other was. We niether expected nor demanded the other to change to fit our own personal vision of whom the other should be.
Edna took immediately to the children and very quickly became known to them as momma Eddy. She was a strict disciplinarian but they didn't seem to mind because they could tell that she loved them dearly. She gave them more love in a day than their birth mother had ever given them.
Often she would criticize me for my lax attitude toward discipline, but always in private and always with a loving tone. She knew how deeply I loved them and how much hurt we had all experienced after their mother deserted us.
I generally allowed her to have her own way when it came to dealing with the children. It worked out best that way and they seem to have turned out fine. I think they shed more tears over her sudden illness and death than did I. Though I must admit that I shed my share, mostly in private.
I feel her with me in everything I do, comforting me and encouraging me to get on with my life. And I have resolved to do just that. I think that is one reason I could finally come to terms with my daughter's insistance on clearing out much of Edna's stuff. I am now ready to let go and move on. Before I wanted as much of her around me as I could possibly have for fear of losing her in every sense of the word.
I have a friend who wants me to take down all the photos of her, whether alone or with me or with her and the children. That I won't do. I simply don't see the need to try to erase her from my present as thought she was never a part of my past. Hell, I still have photo's of their birth mother, not on the wall but in albums. She was after all their mother and is a part of our past.
She was a odd nut as I mention in a previous post. Some of her eccentricities were hard to take at times and they became more pronounced as she grew older. They were, however a part of who she was and I loved who she was.
This song reflects best, perhaps, they way we felt about each other as our relationship grew. I know it is the way I felt right up to the moment she passed.
Written and performed by Carol King.
