"I Can't Stop Loving You," Ch. 01

Unless one has hordes of money and/or a wealth of family and friends, who among us is happy enough to believe that life on Earth is better than any life we could possibly imagine we'd have in Heaven? As if we're already living in Hell, too many of us experience the worst that can happen to us now on Earth. As if we're already living in Heaven, those who believe in God, in a paradise after death, and that a thousand virgins are waiting for them, seemingly can't wait to die.

'Bang! Bang! You're dead. Here lies Ted, shot in the head by his wife when he was sleeping in bed. Ted's dead but his wife is a rich widow. Only, she may be rich now but she can't take her money with her.'

Maybe it's all just a state of mind, an illusion that if we truly believe and have faith, we use to trick ourselves into thinking that there's something more after death. Just as in life we somehow and sometimes fool ourselves in believing that in death that there's something more and something better, maybe we still have that ability to trick ourselves in death too. Maybe we're dead already and this is just one of our afterlives in a parallel dimension.

I don't know. I don't have a clue. No one knows. No one has a clue. If they tell you they've seen God, the Devil, Heaven, and Hell, either they're trying to scam money or they're crazy.

* * * * *

"I Can't Stop Loving You," echoed through the quiet stillness of the cemetery as if the song was in her head instead of coming from the portable cassette player.

In the way that love just happens and most times catches us by surprise, love can't be turned off just because the person we loved is dead. Sometimes, with them no longer there and with us imagining that they were better when alive and things were better in life, now that they're dead, we fool ourselves into loving them even more. In the way that Ray Charles sang about being unable to stop loving someone, having mourned the loss of William years ago, Susan now mourned her most recent loss of her beloved Patrick. No matter who takes their place, she can't stop loving them. With Patrick dying last year and William dying five, long years ago, a year before she met Patrick, her life was a rollercoaster ride of love, happiness, death, and sadness.

As if the cemetery was acoustically tuned and surround sound wired, the perfectly aligned rows of stone, granite, and marble headstones, resonated the music. As if the songs were expressly meant for her, the love songs he played softly wafted through the air and through the trees while serenading her. Then, even after she left the cemetery, the lyrics continued to play through her head as if the love songs were not only sung and meant for her but also written for her too.

"I Can't Stop Loving You," played through her head and serenaded her everywhere she went.

While swooning to the music lightheaded as if she was in love with the singers, with her having an affinity and an affection for them, love songs made her knees weak. Depending on the moment and on her mood, love songs made her sad. Love songs made her cry. Love songs made her smile. Love songs made her happy. Meant only for her, love songs made her wish she had someone who loved her enough to write a love song for her and to sing such a beautiful love song to her. Even if it was just a simple love song, such as I Love You Truly or Love Me Tender, she'd love to have her very own love song just as she'd yearned to have her very own lover and love story again.

Love songs made her pulse race and her heart beat faster. If there was a way to get to her heart, to her soul, in her head, and to get her in bed, it was with the music of a love song. With her always so lonely, especially since the death of her special friend, Patrick, she wished she had a special someone who'd sing that one, romantic love song to her.

As long as he wasn't a perverted stalker and as long as she loved him too, she'd love to have a man in her life who couldn't stop loving her in the way she can't stop loving William and Patrick. She'd love to have a man in her life who'd sing his love to her every morning and every night. As if he had written the song for her and was there with her now, she closed her eyes to listen to Ray Charles fill her head with his words and with the music of his love song.

"I can't stop love you. I've made up my mind. To live in memory of the lonesome times. I can't stop wanting you. It's useless to say. So I'll just live my life in dreams of yesterday."

The lyrics along with Ray Charles' magical voice played through her head as if an endless recording.

* * * * *

From the entrance of the cemetery, as if his love songs haunted the final burial grounds, she heard his music before she saw him. Driving further through the cemetery, Susan spotted his car, a shiny, new, black Cadillac CTS-V sedan with shiny, chrome wheels and a custom, red leather interior, before she saw him. Such a fine and expensive automobile, Susan loved cars and she loved Cadillacs nearly as much as she loved Mustangs, specifically Mustang GT's.

With his car blocking her view of him, as soon as she walked around the obstructed view from his car, she saw him from a distance so sadly sitting there alone. As if he was a statue, a permanent fixture, and now part of the cemetery, he looked as if he haunted the cemetery and belonged there. As if he had slept there overnight and as if he had never left the cemetery, but for his change of clothes, he was there in front of the same grave playing the same nine, love songs over and again. At first glance with him so pale and with his grey hair nearly white, is she didn't know he was alive, she'd think he was a ghost.

Susan had seen him there many times before but, not wanting to intrude and careful not to stare, she had never spoken to him. With her feeling as if she already knew him, she vicariously bonded with him through her loss of her special someone's, her friends, her companions, and her lovers with whomever he had lost too. No matter who had died, wherever she went and whatever she did, the raw, painful, and empty feelings of loss were always the same and were always there with her. Unable to think of anything else, she was lost in the moment of memories, good times, and bad times with snips of dialogue that were salted with laughter and tears.

In the way he mourned the loss of his loved one by sitting there hour after hour and day after day, she mourned the loss of her loved one too. With him grieving for his loss in the way she grieved for her loss, in the way she felt connected with Patrick and with William before him, somehow, without even knowing his name, she already felt connected to him. With Susan just seeing him and realizing how devoted he was to whomever it was he had lost to death, she felt the same way after losing her two special friends. Developing a vicarious connection from afar, with each knowing and understanding the other's pain, she felt that they could be friends, good friends, close friends, companions, and perhaps even lovers if ever they met and were formally introduced. In the way she had bonded so closely with William and Patrick, she could see herself bonding with him too.

Only, wrong for her to intrude on his private moment with his deceased loved one, just as she'd rather not be bothered by someone trying to pick her up in a cemetery, she'd never be forward enough to introduce herself. This was a cemetery after all and not a dance hall, a club, a bar, and/or a meeting place for singles. Unless she was filling her head with good memories of Patrick and of William, the time she spent here were sad times and not happy ones. With her seeing him there every time she came to the cemetery, she wondered if he visited the cemetery every day or coincidentally was there just on the days that she happened to visit the cemetery too.

With him too preoccupied talking to whomever was buried there, he didn't seem to even notice her coming, going, and sitting there talking to her special friend in the way she noticed him talking to his special friend too. Perhaps because she didn't play music or sing was the reason why he didn't notice her. Yet, hard not to notice her with her long, lush, naturally blonde hair that cascaded down her shapely back, he'd have to be blind, dead, or gay not to notice her.

If she was anything, she was single, unattached, and an unencumbered beautiful, young woman without baggage, pets, and/or children. If she was anything, she was a living beacon of light in a black and white burial ground of quiet desolation and distraught desperation. Giving grieving widowers another choice to death and a second chance at living life large, Susan gave older men what they wanted and what they so needed to move forward with their lives. She was the reason why the older men who were with her wanted to continue to live and not yet die. She was the reason why the older men who were with her were generous with her in life and even more generous with her after their deaths.

She gave them hope. She gave them joy. She gave them friendship. She gave them companionship. She gave them happiness and excitement. She gave them sex, lots of sex, more sex than they ever had with their wives. She loved them in the way they needed to be loved and in the way they so loved her too. Alas, they were dead. Her beloved William and Patrick were both dead.

* * * * *

Seemingly, not interested in meeting someone new, he didn't see her sometimes looking over at him and watching him while he listened to the beautiful music he played. With her so very lonely and obviously with him lonely too, he didn't seem interested in her in the way she could be interested in him if only they met. Only, with her still mourning the loss of one man, Susan wasn't yet ready to love another man so soon after the death of Patrick. She still had William in her head too. Yet, hard to believe that so much time had already passed, Patrick had been dead and buried for 1 year, two months, and three days. How was that possible? Where did the time go?

Always seeing him alone, being that he didn't look like he wanted and/or needed her company or anyone's company for that matter, perhaps it was better that she left him alone and in peace. Just as she needed to be left alone with her bad self, perhaps he needed to be left alone with his bad self too. Perhaps the one he lost was his love of his life, his wife, someone he loved and had been together with for a number of years and now he was done with women. Maybe he wasn't even a heterosexual man but a gay man. Perhaps the one he lost was his gay, best friend, his partner in life, and his lover, someone he loved and had been together with for a number of years. Yet, still so very curious, unable to help herself, she wondered who he was visiting.

She wondered if he was visiting his mother, his father, his wife, his child, or his special friend in the way she paid her respects to her special friends whenever she made the time to visit their graves. Even from the fifty yard distance between them, he looked so very sad. He looked sad in the way that William and Patrick looked sad when she met them in this very cemetery and in the way that she looked sad now. She could feel his pain and his suffering sorrow. In the way she helped eased their pain, she knew that she could ease his pain too.

Actually, if they were to meet, in the way she did with William and with Patrick, they'd both be helping one another. If they were to meet, in the way she did with William first and with Patrick next, they could become friends, good friends, close friends, and companions before perhaps becoming lovers. Yet, in the way that William and Patrick were ready to move on with their lives before meeting her, with him obviously still in the grieving period, he didn't seem ready to begin a new relationship with her or with anyone.

To be continued...

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