Song 14 of 20
Song 14 of 20
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The illness has progressed, and some of the plans they once talked about can no longer realistically happen. Trips are postponed or abandoned, future family occasions become uncertain, and conversations increasingly include things they had hoped to do later. Husband and wife are still together and still living their daily life, but the range of possible tomorrows is becoming smaller as the disease advances.
The blue map tumbles from its fileYou trace the coast and slowly smile“Long coastal road,” I say. “Too slow.”“That’s why,” you answer. “We should go.”“At dawn,” I say. You answer, “Ten.”“Try nine.” “Try noon.” We laugh. “Say when.”Your finger follows bend to bendWe watch the roadway lose its end
We made our plans because we couldThen “we will” softened into “would”
We’d have taken the long way westWith miles to wander, time to restWe’d wake when sunlight warmed the shoreWe’d let our coffee cool once moreWe’d make tomorrow, place by placeAnd wear the years with stubborn graceWe miss the days we never knewThe life already lived with you
His graduation waits in MayYou mark the date, then look away“I may not hear them call his name.”“I may,” I say, “but not the same.”You steal my coffee, cold and black“Just borrowing.” “Then give it back.”We leave that blue ring round the dateWe hear the rafters resonate
Unfinished futures run too deepUnlived tomorrows steal our sleep
We’d have taken the long way westWith miles to wander, time to restWe’d wake when sunlight warmed the shoreWe’d let our coffee cool once moreWe’d make tomorrow, place by placeAnd wear the years with stubborn graceWe miss the days we never knewThe life already lived with you
I see us climbing, bent and slowYou call each turn I swear I knowThermostat wars, one more degreeI lift the sash. You disagree.Our laughter travels through the yearsThen eighty blurs and disappearsThe picture pales as truth draws nearYou touch my wrist. “I’m still right here.”
We lose the two we meant to beThe older you, the older meThe years we pictured lose their placeNo older laughter lights your faceI cannot mend what will not beOr map the years we will not seeYour warm hand settles into mineWe grieve the road, but share this time
Refolding blue, our fingers meetTwo coffees slowly lose their heat
We made our plans because we couldThen “we will” softened into “would”
We’d have taken the long way westWith miles to wander, time to restWe’d wake when sunlight warmed the shoreWe’d let our coffee cool once moreWe’d make tomorrow, place by placeAnd wear the years with stubborn graceWe miss the days we never knewThe life already lived with you
His graduation waits in MayYou mark the date, then look away“I may not hear them call his name.”“I may,” I say, “but not the same.”You steal my coffee, cold and black“Just borrowing.” “Then give it back.”We leave that blue ring round the dateWe hear the rafters resonate
Unfinished futures run too deepUnlived tomorrows steal our sleep
We’d have taken the long way westWith miles to wander, time to restWe’d wake when sunlight warmed the shoreWe’d let our coffee cool once moreWe’d make tomorrow, place by placeAnd wear the years with stubborn graceWe miss the days we never knewThe life already lived with you
I see us climbing, bent and slowYou call each turn I swear I knowThermostat wars, one more degreeI lift the sash. You disagree.Our laughter travels through the yearsThen eighty blurs and disappearsThe picture pales as truth draws nearYou touch my wrist. “I’m still right here.”
We lose the two we meant to beThe older you, the older meThe years we pictured lose their placeNo older laughter lights your faceI cannot mend what will not beOr map the years we will not seeYour warm hand settles into mineWe grieve the road, but share this time
Refolding blue, our fingers meetTwo coffees slowly lose their heat
Behind The Song
Behind The Song
Where Tomorrow Used To Be explores a kind of grief that can begin before a person dies.
A shared future is partly imaginary, but that does not make it meaningless.
The couple had already invested in possibilities: the road west, family milestones, aging together, familiar arguments twenty years from now, ordinary mornings in older bodies.
Those events had not occurred. But the expectations were real.
They influenced saving, planning, conversation and happiness. The couple had already begun psychologically inhabiting that future.
Now some of it is being taken away.
This is why the grammatical change from “we will” to “we would have” carries such force.
Nothing mystical has vanished. What has been lost is possibility.
The older versions of themselves they expected to become will probably never exist.
That is a legitimate object of grief.
The album makes an important distinction here between mourning what will not happen and treating the living woman as though she is already absent.
She is not. There are still two coffees. Their fingers still meet. They can still laugh. They can still create another memory.
So the song allows them to grieve the road they may never travel while also returning them to the room they still possess.
That is one of grief's hardest disciplines: allowing a real loss to be real without letting it consume every remaining value.
They cannot repair the unavailable years.
They cannot negotiate with the disease until the future becomes fair again.
But neither must they sacrifice the living present as payment for the future they have lost.
They refold the map. Their hands touch. Tomorrow has narrowed. Today has not vanished.
The Takeaway
The Takeaway
We can grieve something that never happened because an expected future can already become part of the life we are living now. But losing one set of possibilities must not be confused with losing all possibility. There is enormous wisdom in being able to say, “That future is gone,” without accidentally concluding, “There is nothing left here to value.”
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