Billy Bob

March 18

This morning I heard a song that brought me to tears on my way to work. I think I've started every day this week with puffy eyes. My hope is that the chilly air in my face gives me an excuse. The song was "John Deere Green" by Joe Diffy. This is not my normal taste in music, but I was listening to local radio and my choices were to listen to a commercial or change it to the country station.  It doesn't make much sense that I would instantly start crying at this song -  at least it didn't to me at first.

When I was in fifth grade, I started to care about music a little bit.  Up to that point, I just listened to anything presented to me.  By the age of ten, I know I loved Soul Asylum’s “Run Away Train”  and Blind Melon’s “No Rain,”  however, I live in an area where country music is difficult to avoid.  Now I listen to mostly folk and indie music, but I still know all the words to Tim McGraw’s “Don’t Take the Girl,” Sammy Kershaw’s “She Don’t Know She’s Beautiful” and Joe Diffy’s “John Deere Green.”  

Before we had Daphne, Matt and I spent a lot of time alone together in the car - traveling home to visit our families, taking road trips for vacation, weddings.  We drove to New Orleans to honeymoon and to Alabama for spring break.  We’d casually hold hands and just talk and talk.  About nothing sometimes. Future plans, promises, politics, family issues, and even disagreements other times.  We’d keep each other awake as we drove to the next stop on the map and one of the rules was that the sleepy driver was allowed to rule (and blast) the radio if the other person dozed off.  I’m terrible at driving long distances, so I was usually the dozer.  Back then, on every trip over a half hour’s drive, I would ask Matt to interrupt the rock he was listening to and turn on the Sammy Kershaw Pandora station - just for giggles and nostalgia’s sake.  He thought it was hilarious when I would belt out the words to the dorky country songs of my past, so he would humor me until we heard a few good hits. He would cut me off, but he would laugh and laugh. before he’d cut me off.  I know I was crying for those memories.  

Then I actually listened to the song and thought about the lyrics - the characters are so damn proud to be together despite the town thinking they are of foolish. Their love was expressed their way (in letters three foot high) and their love language wasn't quite understood by anyone else. I think we really had that.

I don't think my "town" thought we were foolish, but I had many friends tell me that we seemed to be all the other needed or that we were obvious about our feelings. Many times, I felt just slightly judged by this - like I was some sort of love nerd who couldn’t  be cool, be cool….in front of others.  Someone once razzed me because they “didn’t know I was a hand-holder.” I met my with wine group the weekend before I lost him. On the way home, after I complained to a girlfriend about a small ongoing disagreement we had been having, she told me she was glad to hear that we argued sometimes because it seemed like we never did. That was far from true.  We argued but made sure we always left lines of communication open even when we were upset.  We didn't follow the rule about "never going to bed angry" but we always said I love you before we slept. Anger didn't change that. Judged or not, I never wanted to change it.  We were obvious about our love. Instead of a green painted message on a water tower, Matt proclaimed his pride over being my husband to his co-workers, to our family and friends, on my Facebook wall, through handwritten cards, in every email.

The week after our wedding, I sat on the bed in our New Orleans hotel to check for a wedding photo sneak peak from our photographer on Facebook. Instead, what I found was a note from her second shooter.  She wrote to me to tell me how much fun she had at our wedding, but also that she knew I had snagged a good one.  She knew this because he was so proud to call me wife.  She was assigned to photograph the boys getting ready for the ceremony, and she heard him talk about the card he picked out to exchange through bridesmaid messenger - how he really wanted me to like it because cards (and the artsy store he bought it from) were important to me.  I frantically looked for that Facebook note tonight.  I found it.  She said,” I overheard him bragging to people about how incredibly artistic and creative and multi-talented you were.  It wasn't in a boastful way but in a "My wife is just absolutely astoundingly talented" way.  It was adorable.”

He always saw the best version of me and I’m pretty sure that version existed because of him - I always used to joke that he was a far nicer, more generous person than I could ever hope to be.  I was loose around him - I laughed without thought and sang ridiculous twangy songs and made goofy faces and was unself-conscious about his hand resting on my knee as we drove south down a highway in Alabama.  

“He wrote Billy Bob loves Charlene.  In letters three-foot high.  And the whole town said, ‘The boy should have used red’, but it looked good to Charlene in John Deere Green.”