This week marks the ten year anniversary of what Honey and I describe and the greatest week of our married lives. (Read more about that here: https://brandonbritton.blogspot.com/2022/05/jasmine.html)For the first time in our married life, Honey and I went away for a week, just the two of us, a sort of second honeymoon — or more accurately, a first honeymoon twenty years late, since we didn’t actually have a honeymoon when we married, unless you count ordering Domino’s in our duplex and then joining the rest of our family and friends at my parents house for a New Year’s Eve party.
As April rolled into May in 2015, Honey and I spent the week in New Orleans, as Bill Withers says, “just the two of us.” The weather was PERFECT. The jasmine was in peak bloom so you could literally smell the sweet fragrance throughout the city. We ate all of our favorite meals at all of our favorite places. We hung out for hours at coffee shops, reading, talking and people watching. At night we bounced from venue to venue catching all our favorite bands around the city. The week came to an end at Jazz Fest where we lounged on blankets listening to music from every genre in every direction, only taking a break to grab something else to eat. The weekend came to a close with the single greatest performance I’ve ever attended. Lenny Kravitz — Honey’s favorite artist, and unapologetic crush — and Trombone Shorty — my favorite artist. Despite being in an ocean of people, we managed to get close to the stage and during Lenny’s set he came into the crowd and right up to us, where he had to be reluctantly pried from Honey’s bear hug — by the way, this is not the first time this has happened; the same thing happened twenty years earlier during a concert with Lenny Kravitz and The Black Crowes. Lenny Kravitz is a rock star in every sense of the word and puts on unforgettable performances every time. When he got to the point of the set where he performs “Let Love Rule” it was like a church service with 50,000 people. By the time Trombone Shorty took the stage the crowd was already electrified and he took it to another level. I left that night knowing I’d never experience a concert performance like that again.
A song in regular rotation around our house is by Michael Franti called, “Life Is Amazing”. Right out of the gate he throws you a curveball with the line, “Life is amazing, then it sucks, then it’s amazing again.” I’m telling you about this song, because we’ve lived it, and I bet you have too.
This is the ten year anniversary of the greatest week of our married lives, but it is also the ten year anniversary of the beginning of the hardest decade of our lives. It was on the way home from that trip that we got the call informing us that Honey’s mama had a large tumor in her esophagus. A day later Honey was on a plane to Tennessee, where she would spend most of the next nine months caring for her mother as she recovered from surgery and then chemo/radiation therapy to treat Stage 3 esophageal cancer. Life is amazing, then it sucks.
Over the next four years Honey would make repeated trips, and then once again move back to Tennessee for several months to care for her mother until the cancer took her from us. It was during this span of time that we lost our son to addiction for seven years, and on multiple occasions, almost lost him for good. If you’ve never loved someone in the grip of addiction — be thankful — I simply don’t have adequate words to describe what it does to you. The best I can do is tell you it is Hell. During these last ten years my own father suffered an abdominal aortic aneurysm, bladder cancer, and a heart attack. Oh, and did I mention I quit my career of 25 years, we sold everything we owned and moved into a “tiny home”? We say tiny home because the truth — we live in a shed — is more than most people can process. Life is amazing, then it sucks….then it’s amazing again.
During this difficult decade we have also experienced the greatest personal and spiritual growth of our lives, I finally finished my degree, we became debt free, we finally obtained good health insurance, were present to watch both our sons propose, gained two daughters as both our boys got married, and we had three GRANDCHILDREN born.
Life is amazing, then it sucks, then it’s amazing again.
I’ll admit, the song is not the most metaphorically poetic and elegant, it’s kind of crude and blunt, but so is life most days, so open up the windows, crank up the stereo, and sing to the top of your lungs.
“Don't you worry what tomorrow brings
Or yesterday my friend
Life is amazing, then it sucks, then it's amazin' again.”
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