Fate

I had another of those dreams last night – you know the kind. I was at the gate in the airport, but my ticket was with someone else, and they had just taken off on the plane I was supposed to board. In the taxi my money had turned into Monopoly money, and when I was forced out of the car, the dreamscape had changed and I couldn’t find my way home.

Despite the fact that my dream world had not caught up with cell phones, I awoke acknowledging that the dream reflected my reality: obstruction, and my state of mind: frustration.

For those of you who have been following our story, you know that it is now thirty years since I tried to tell Justin Hayward that I remembered our shared past, and the tragedy it held. At first I didn’t know how to proceed, so I did the only thing possible – I wrote to the fan club in Cobham. With no help from that quarter, and with my husband’s blessing, I flew to Britain and visited the various spots I knew to be important to Justin, there and in Swindon, but with no luck. Desperate to leave with no progress, I left fifty pounds and a note explaining the situation with an employee of the Moody Blues’ record shop, imploring him to pass it on to Justin.

He took my money and admitted to saying nothing.

Over the years I plucked up the courage and tried to reach him at any concert I could get to, but I was discouraged, misdirected, even lied to. It is not in my nature to make a spectacle of myself, and I tried to be polite and discreet, but always I was humiliated. And every time I went, it ripped a hole in my family.

Once I secretly flew overseas to try again, and as I sat in that plane I was so torn. What if the plane went down? How would my family feel? Which allegiance is more important – the one I owe to Justin and in turn the world, or the very personal one that is my orbit – my present family?

I had a friend whose son was killed senselessly with four other boys, and I desperately wanted to prove to her that we do survive death, and that she and her son would be together again. And so, in 2010, when The Moodies came to a nearby city, I vowed to do whatever it took to finally reach Justin, despite my fear. So this time I sought out the theatre manager, explained that I was a long ago acquaintance of Justin’s and was sure that he would want to see me if he knew I was there. He agreed to get my note to the band manager.

I waited, my nerves walking a tightrope, and as the theatre emptied at the end of the evening, I went searching for the stage manager. He assured me he had passed on the message. But when Justin didn’t appear, I ran for my car and left.

I spent the night in a nearby hotel listening to the elevator clang and the traffic racing outside, and drove home with the worst migraine I’d ever had, to admit defeat, again, to face the inevitable “well maybe it’s because it’s all in your head”. But worse was holding my friend as she cried.

If I’d only known that later that same night Justin did receive my note. That he waited for the next night’s concert, thinking I’d try again. But I was two hours north, unaware and about to break.

In the years that followed, I went on the cruise (see my previous post), I left my family to travel miles and miles away, always to be mislead. In 2016, I decided I couldn’t keep repeating the same behavior and expect a different outcome. I vowed that if it was to be, it would be in the hands of fate.

And so, it is. After thirteen years Justin is returning to my area of the world. And possibly hoping that this time, things would work out and we could finally speak. He announced the tour recently, months after I’d agreed to fly out to Calgary at precisely the same time. Why not cancel, you might ask. Because my sister took over my ninety-five year old mother’s care two years ago, and desperately tired, is finally taking a vacation in Croatia with her friends, and it is my moral duty to go and take her place caring for our mother, who cannot be left alone.

Fate. Repeatedly defeated.

As Justin writes: “We put our faith in God and Man, and one of them betrays us every chance he can.

We stumble on, through wind and rain, and even in the sunshine we get burned again.”

One Day, Someday…..