Memories

I just had a touch of nostalgia. One of those instances when one is transported right back to a teenager, 49 years to be precise.

Listening to the National Radio just now, the announcer relayed that Elton John was resuming his New Zealand tour that was cancelled two years ago. The station then proceeded to play Benny and The Jets, which if I heard correctly, was the version from his 1974 New Zealand tour. I was at his Auckland concert that year.

A carload of us had travelled up from Rotorua for the event, which included some good-looking male friends of one of my nursing friends. I must have been 18 at the time. The whole journey was exciting - three of us girls and three handsome guys. What teenage dreams are made of.

But it was also bitter sweet. 

My father had died in July that year. The concert was in October and while it was three months since this sad event, I'd taken his death pretty hard. The Auckland concert was a welcome distraction. Until that was, that Elton played a track from his recently released album, Goodbye Yellow Brick Rd. The track - Funeral For A Friend. I remember crying my eyes out, all the happiness draining from my soul. Amongst the crowd, in the darkness, I let my grief flow. There had already been many tears in the three months since my father's death, not helped by having to nurse dying patients, but I remember that concert as a turning point. I hated people seeing my cry, I still do. I used to pretend I was happy, that I was okay. I had to force myself to do things.

Yet after that event, I remember feeling a bit of real happiness seeping through. I wasn't pretending all my happiness, some of it was real. And bit by bit, more happiness came.

It was a difficult time for me. I don't think one ever gets over their parent's death at such a young age. To be fair, my father was old and I knew I wouldn't have him forever, but I'd always thought that he would be hospitalized first, giving me time to say goodbye. I wasn't expecting his sudden death - nor the summons to the matron's office. I wondered what I'd done wrong, never suspecting the news she was going to impart to me.

But that was then. I choose to remember the excitement of our trip that evening, driving up in a Mark 2 Zephyr, full of anticipation about our evening ahead.