Beauty in the Breakdown

"Love was enough."

I can't imagine her pain or her ecstasy as she said those words to me. Sitting in a B grade bar, on a rusty stool with no piano in sight, this acclaimed singer/musician was batting her now almost gone eyelids at me.

Having seen the small shrine she built to her immortal love, just a little while ago, I didn't know what to say to her, a few paintings he had made for her, an autographed book, a few now yellowed pictures and her wedding ring.

Their was a story which was worth talking about, a 50 something man in love with a not yet 20 something girl. If age wasn't what worked against them, there was also the media pressure and the public images they both carried. One who was a famous writer and the other who was just about beginning to know what being famous felt like. It was all very new to her, to him she was his third wife. The fact that he had children from previous marriages didn't bother her, it was love.

Today after 10 years of loving him and some 15 after losing him to life, she sits and looks at me, as if it was all still happening, she was still with him, there in that rundown bar.

She doesn't have the money, anything from the inheritance of the books, the estates, its all with the children or the other wives.

" I didn't want to loose everything I have, the memories of him over some cheap squabble about who will have the money. Love was enough."

I wonder, about her, the love and the beauty of her breakdown, taking a sip of the cheap beer in front of me, I call for another round.

For me. For her.