Fate or Random?

I was reading CJ's blog at www.froggy61.blogspot.com and she was talking about how her music gave her inspiration on her long run. Last week while I was running after we received 18 inches of the white stuff, I had a similar music experience. My children were sledding at our town golf course while I ran an easy three in the same vacinity. Right across the street from the golf course is our Catholic cemetery, the same cemetery where my first husband is sorta buried. He is not really buried there, but does have a footstone(is that even what it is called, i dont even know) on his family's plot. He died suddenly in a car accident and we weren't sure what his wishes would have been so we cremated him and his brother and mother spread his ashes in the ocean in North Carolina, a special place for him and the boys. But I also thought the boys would need a place to visit, so we put a stone with his name and dates up on his family's plot. As it turns out, they never want to go there, but I noticed other people do go there because there are always little momentos left on his stone.

On Monday, while running near the cemetery, I decided to go run in the cemetery. I, of course, was sad and feeling sorry for myself and my boys and the song that just randomly came on was "Am I The Only One to Ever Love This Way", by the Dixie Chicks. I was chuckling to myself about that song, because not only did I lose my first husband to an early death, but the only other man I loved and was still close with after we broke up, my first love, died six months earlier of cancer. All of the men I have ever loved died when I was 31 years old. It was very weird, my current husband is always teased that he is a brave man to stick with me, the black widow. The upside of it all is that he never has to deal with those uncomfortable chance meetings of seeing your partner's past lovers.

I finally reached my first husband's plot and stopped to think/pray/just stand there thinking about him. And, of course, his stone was buried under the snow. So I furiously started digging through the snow trying to see his stone. It was very surreal, digging like that. Some of our actions as humans are very basic, instinctual. I am not sure of the right word, oh maybe primal is the right way to describe those needs that don't make a lot of sense. Once I found the stone and saw his name and was once again assured or reminded that yes he was gone, I fixed up the little candles and cars and fake flowers that were left by others that loved him and continued on my run with blurred vision from my tears. Luckily it is okay to cry in a cemetery so I didn't feel weird. As I was running away from his stone, the song "Angel From Montgomery" by Bonnie Raitt came on. Again, I chuckled and questioned all my beliefs about fate, God, love etc. All in all, a very intense run for my sometimes intense life.