The Rain Song

("The Rain Song" - Led Zeppelin)

I used to listen to this song constantly when I was 17 years old.  It wasn't a song that filled me with joy.  It enhanced the sadness that I felt inside.  The year of 17 was hard for me.  Very hard.

As I came home this morning from running errands, this came on the radio.  I sat in driveway listening and remembering.  I was remembering him.

At the age of 17, I was wildly and passionately in love with Kevin.  Oh he was beautiful to look at.  He had flowing chestnut brown hair that cascaded over his shoulders.  It was the most gorgeous hair I had ever seen on a guy.  His very long eyelashes framed his emerald green eyes perfectly.   His eyes were mesmerizing and hypnotic.  He towered over me at 6'5" and I loved every inch of him. 

He was a huge Led Zeppelin fan.  He could sing any of their songs at the drop of a hat and never miss a beat.  His singing voice was smooth and very sexy -- as sexy as a 18 year old's voice could be.   His laugh.. infectious and contagious.  I swear to God that 28 years later I can still hear it.  I will probably always remember it.  He laughed often, and it was part of his charm.

I met him through my step-grandmother's son.  He, at the time, was dating Kevin's sister.  Kevin arrived at my house with his sister Karen.  We hit it off immediately.  We hit it off so well that I ended up breaking up with my boyfriend.  

He took that charm one rainy night and went out with some of his friends.  There were four of them crammed into the bed of a pickup.  The driver of the pickup was drunk.  The truck swerved all over the road judging from the accounts I've heard.   Kevin was seated by the passenger door, and it was that door that bore the brunt of the crash.  The door connected with a telephone pole.  Kevin died instantly.

The phone rang a bit after midnight.  I was asleep and unaware.  I was woken by a knock on my bedroom door.  It was my grandmother coming to tell me that Kevin was gone.  I cried as hard as my 17 year old body could.  My mom tried to console me, but all I kept asking was "Why?"

His funeral was hard.  It wasn't right to see him like that.  I remember him like that, too.  I stood at his coffin and felt lost and alone.  My grandmother had come up and put her arm around my shoulder.  She told me that the best thing for me to do was to kiss him goodbye.  

I did, and I hated it.  His skin was cold against my lips.  It wasn't Kevin.  It just did not feel like him.  It didn't look like him and I was in denial for quite awhile.  I just did not want to believe it.  

I still visit him to this day.  Unfortunately, if you do not know where he's buried, you'd never find him.  Someone stole his marker not long after his burial.  His parents, with whom he did not have a good relationship with, never put a headstone on his grave.  I will never understand that.  Perhaps it's easier for them to forget than it is to remember.

I found his younger brother online a few years ago.  He wanted to know all about his brother because he had been so young when he died.  He didn't remember much.  Talking with him actually allowed my old wounds to heal a bit.  Every once in awhile, the scar gets torn a bit -- like today.

I will always remember him.  He was an important part of my past.  A part that I will always feel a bit of sadness over. 

"Got no time to for spreadin' roots 

the time has come to be gone
And to our health 

we drank a thousand times
it's time to ramble on"

-"Ramble On"  - Led Zeppelin