A Hundred Years Ago

Or maybe just over a year but it seems longer, I was sitting at my computer in Korea when I received a phonecall that started the longest day of my life. My friend, Rory, was coming over for lunch but didn't realise that he would spend most of his time sitting on the floor, unable to find the words to say to me. Later that day, more people came over and helped me to clear my flat into boxes, backpacks, suitcases, rubbish bags and various homes around the city, all the time trying to offer comfort in a comfortless suitation.

The second phonecall arrived that evening as I stood in my half empty flat with Patrick and Heimi. My flight would be too late. The moment had passed and all I could do was go home and try to deal with the aftermath. The words of comfort stopped as there was nothing that could be said to make things better. No words would replace the feelings of loss.

As friends finished work they came to my house one by one for my unplanned last night in Korea. They looked to me to know what to do and strove to find a way to break the monotony of the tears.

Pub, I said, I want to go to the place I think of as my second home. The place I return to after a weekend out of Gangneung to feel like I have really made it back. I want to say goodbye to my friends and my memories, dammit.

So we went and sat in seats that we had never occupied before, the conversation swinging from normality to the end of the world and back.

A few tequilas and beers later, a guitar appeared in Rory's hand. I was going to play at your goodbye party so I am going to play for you now, he said and he played over my tears.

Two months later as I was preparing to go on my round the world trip I loaded some songs onto my MP3 player. Unfamiliar with the technology it took me a while. Did it work, my sister asked as I put the headphone into my ears. As the guitar started tears escaped once more, I guess so, I replied.

At first it was hard to hear the song and not be reminded of the loss. I would skip it or listen and revel in my pain, the hurt proving that at least I could feel. But I still listened, in the mountains of Vietnam, in the outback of Western Australia, on the beach in Fiji, on the metro deep beneath the streets of New York and my pain evolved.

Now I am back in London and listen to the song often. It is always the same song, written about a girl that I have never met by a boy that played for me the night that he didn't know what to say. When the song begins, I smile and hug my feelings close. As Rory starts to sing I remember the love in the room that night, the love that I felt for someone I had lost and the love I had for and received from my friends sitting next to me and sent across the world in emails and phonecalls.

I have loved, I do love and I am very much loved.

As I listen to Rory sing, I feel close to everyone in my life. A song about Rory's pain makes me appreciate my own.

I may not be with you guys every day, every year or even see you from one year to the next but I think of my friends often, those I still have and those that I have lost along the way, no less important though the link has been broken.

Who knew that you could get all that from a song? Certainly, as Rory sat down to write a song about the girl that broke his heart he wouldn't have known that it would be listened to by a girl in London with a heart spread across the world.