Two of Us, The Beatles, Let It Be

My seminal memory of this song is Kevin and I driving in his ’67 Mustang fastback, circa 1997 going to visit his Dad on a Sunday. (It might have been on the way to NAMM. Again, it was awhile back!) It was a bright day, not too much traffic, and the music was blaring alongside the throaty rumble of the 289 engine. The song also contains an inside joke for us that’s very much one of those “unique relationship language” things that are unique to a specific group of humans and is useless to describe. We sang along with the whole album, something that was fun to do together, especially in that car.

I’ve been using my initial thoughts on the song as kind of a writing prompt up until now, but I find myself wondering if I really want to bother writing about Kevin’s family. I’m grateful his parents created him, but I hesitate to try to give them any additional source of attention. I didn’t know them well, and naturally I sided with Kevin when it came to communicating with them.

The memory of this song also kinda reminds me that Amour Fou was already rearing its head, even though it wouldn’t get ugly for some time. I knew the email admonishments quite well (harshly worded and at intervals completely up to his discretion), but a bit of shunning was added to the mix. Yeah, Amor Fou was something else, I tell you what. While I’m at it, this is also where a huge disadvantage of dating significantly older than your age before you’re 30 can manifest–mistaking their shadier behavior as “maturity” or “knowing what’s best for me because they love me because I’m so mature for my age”. And, unfortunately, for a lot of young adults who end up in Amour Fou relationships do so because that’s how they’re used to being treated. “Oh, that person wanting to control me doesn’t seem suspicious because that’s how people treated me growing up.”

Those sweet moments of the ethers aligning and us both being happy in the moment are what give me the strength to keep living. And they soothe the overall still raw pain that is thinking about the fact that Kevin is dead for more than, say, ten seconds. He wanted me to smile because it happened, not cry because it’s over.