since Dad died. I’m a bit taken aback by the time, as I wake up this morning with the memories refreshed in my mind.

Only a scant year after he died, I was in the death throes of an ugly divorce, and I met a woman who smelled like fabric softener and vanilla.She loved to clean and cook, and she had been recently handed her walking papers as well.

We were- for each other- a transitional relationship. neither thought it would last any time, and neither expected more than it was. What it was, though, was intense.

I treated her like a lady, and was gentle and patient, and she gave me a five-month ride that I will probably never forget. I saw to it her kids had a decent Christmas, and she helped me out of a jam- without excessive force.

One morning she asked me if I would please not come back.

I was beginning to appeal to her children more than her ex-husband (we were careful never to let the kids see us doing anything untoward, I visited with them separately than my visits to her) and they didn’t need any more confusion in their lives.

I wrapped myself around her and said goodbye, and walked out into the dark january morning. My 82 Escort ran a little ragged with the cold and I drove off, eyes moist.

The Scort had an AM radio which would get about one music station, and as I turned it on Toy Caldwell was singing to me.

I ain’t never been with a woman long enough for my boots to get old
But we’ve been together so long now they both need resoled
If I ever settle down, you’d be my kind
And that’s a good time for me to head on down the line

Let me tell you, this started the waterworks.
I had been broken pretty hard by the marriage, and the breakup of the marriage was gut wrenching. I thought for a while that I had found someone I could be comfortable with, and then it was gone.

I’m the kind of man who likes to get away
Like to start dreamin’ ’bout tomorrow today
Never said that I loved you, even though it’s so
Where’s that duffel bag of mine, it’s time to go

I realized she was right, that at that moment she was emotionally mature enough to know what the right thing was to do, though it broke our hearts.

I never had a damn thing, but what I had I had to leave it behind
You’re the hardest thing I ever tried to get off of my mind
Always something greener on the other side of that hill
I was born a wrangler and a rounder and I guess I always will

The song ended and I turned off the radio. I drove the rest of the half hour back home in silence, and pulled in the driveway just as the sun peeked over the horizon, and the birdsong began. My face was wet, I was hammered flat, but I was whole. FOr the first time in ten years, I was whole. I turned the corner then, and never looked back.

In retrospect, I think Dad had a hand in causing that song to come on the radio at that time, to let me get all of that pent up emotion out of my system in one great landslide, and move on.

Thanks, Dad. And thanks to the woman who knew when to stop.