"Summer flies and August dies" or Why I Hate August

[cassidyrose]

So, it has occured to me that August is generally a bad month for me. I guess it really is a reminder of sad and/or bittersweet things for me.

--August 8th was the anniversary of a relationship with someone I still terribly miss at times. Someone who the last time I saw him 7 years ago was still slowly killing himself with drugs.

--August 8th is the birthday of my ex-fiance. He hated me for a _long_ time. He doesn't anymore, but I think I still pain him.

--August 9th, 1995 Jerry Garcia died. Need I say more. A close friend of mine sent me the following quote from a dead song when Jerry died:

"Summer flies and August dies
the world grows dark and mean"

I think of those lines every August 9th now. It is from an incredibly beautiful song, "Days Between" which I have a vivid memory of hearing live at the Colliseum with the friend who sent me the quote. Full lyrics can be found at: http://arts.ucsc.edu/GDead/AGDL/days.html

--August 19th is my ex-best-friend's (from high school) b-day.

--The last week of August 1999 was when things with my now ex-husband went from tolerably bad, to intolerably _awful_ and crazy, and my world came collapsing down around me.

So, yeah, as far as months go, August isn't a great one.

Comments

[hopeforyou.livejournal.com]

*hugs* I hear you. August brings back some sad memories for me, too. It was when an ex had his birthday, and we were going to celebrate it together (I got a special gift already) but we broke up before that could happen. I also remember where I was when I heard about Jerry...I was in a van leaving Gunnison Beach, NJ, with a friend and Sinboy. We had WNEW on the radio, and they gave us minute by minute reports there. We fell silent for a long time, didn't know what to say. It was eerily quiet in that van for a long time.

thanks...

[cassidyrose.livejournal.com]

thanks for the hugs.

I'm sorry to hear that August is rough for you as well. I can't imagine how rough that must have been having a gift already for someone, then not being able to give it because you broke-up :-(.

Thanks for sharing your Jerry story. I even remember what I was wearing when Jerry died.

The day Jerry died, I was at my secretary's job and it was in the morning. I was listening to the radio and I some dumb-ass radio dude was making some joke about Jerry being dead. I panicked and immediately changed the station to one which regularly play the dead, and I was horrified to hear that Jerry really had died. I almost fell out of my chair. I was wearing a pair of black Gap jeans, and a purple cotton knit top.

I immediately called my then-boyfriend but couldn't get ahold of him. Then I called my dad. All I could get out in between sobs was "Jerry died", to which he responded "Jerry who?" "Garcia" I said. He was floored. Although part of the SF music scene in every oher way, dad had only recently come to love the dead. We talked for a bit, then I called my boyfriend and got ahold of him. He was crushed as well. Shortly after, dad showed up to my office unannounced to console me. He told me he "cried buckets" the day John Lennon was killed. I picked up my boyfriend for lunch that day and we drove around sobbing and listening to all the dead-tribute stuff that was playing on the radio that day. My mom taped all the radio stuff that was aired that day for me, but I still haven't brought myself to listen to it.

A couple of months later, my boyfriend and I were ata Jimmy Buffet show and he encored with _Uncle John's Band_ and a huge image of Jerry was projected onto the screen above the stage. We both started sobbing uncontrolably.

In an odd side-note, my dad's mother died the same year as Lennon, and his dad the same year as Jerry. Odd.