Here’s to the Signs; May We Always See Them

I must apologize for the amount of time between blogs. There have been several things that have happened over the past month that have taken a lot of my time and attention. I promise to try to be better in the future. Anyway, I am back, so let’s see how it goes…

Last week, I was in Washington, DC, for a training about Trauma in Law Enforcement, and before I continue, let me just tell you that this post should hopefully not be a trigger for anyone. I am just giving you the background on where it is coming from.

On Monday, we talked about wellness and how important it is for people to develop good coping skills and find things that they enjoy to help them release the traumas that they have been exposed to. Music was one of the ways that came up, as the speaker played us four musical selections and asked us each to think about where the selections took us and how it made us feel. One of the selections was “Tennessee Whiskey” by Chris Stapleton, and it was this one that I want to talk about specifically.

Last year, when Abby and I were in Dallas for the FirstHelp Family Honor Weekend, after the dinner there was music and people were dancing. The band played “Tennessee Whiskey” and it got my tears flowing. I didn’t know why at the time because Grubby and I were not generally fans of country music. We never listened to it, and we certainly never danced to it. To be completely candid, I am not sure Grubby ever heard it. I don’t think I ever had before that night.

So, it was odd to me that this song had such an effect on me. I finally learned what the song was about on Monday, so maybe it wasn’t so far fetched that this would be something that tied us together. I don’t really believe in coincidence. I think there is always some underlying reason that things happen as they do. So, until Monday, my reaction to that song was something that I didn’t really get and just figured it was because it was an emotional setting.

If you haven’t ever listened to the words, “Tennessee Whiskey” was about a man who was a hard drinker who met a woman that made him want to give up his nights in barrooms to be home with her – she became the thing that saved him from himself. Most people who knew Grubby in his later years would tell you that he wasn’t a drinker, and anyone who knows me will tell you that I don’t drink, but I am also not bothered by being around it.

I’d seen Grubby drink to excess a few times before, when we were in Greece. Once we became a couple two years later, I rarely saw him have even one drink, much less drink until he got drunk. He just didn’t do that stuff, and I can count on one hand the number of times I saw him drinking to the point of looseness in the nine years we lived together. I would probably only need the other hand to add in the number of times he even drank at all.

I once asked him why he didn’t drink anymore, and he told me that he didn’t like who it made him become when he drank to excess. That was it, and we never talked about it again. So, hearing the meaning behind “Tennessee Whiskey” got me to thinking… was I the one who made him want to change, to be a better man? Was it his love and respect for me that kept him from becoming that person again – the one he didn’t like? Of course, I will never know, but I find it a bit ironic that what seemed like such an odd song for me to have an emotional response to might not have been so odd after all.

Whatever it was, that song will forever be imprinted on my mind, and so, I raise a bottle of Evian to Grubby, and say, “Cheers, Babe! I miss you, and I love you.”