Faded Love

 

I recently attended a funeral where his family provided a video of Pat playing “Faded Love” on his fiddle. I first met Pat when he jammed with Jim, his brother, and a couple of other friends. A man of many talents, Pat was a cabinet maker. He built the cabinets in Harold’s house, where I live now. Later after Harold and I married, Pat’s son Bart built cabinets for our laundry room and the downstairs bathroom.

 I didn’t know about Pat’s Cabinets when I knew him. I knew him only as a talented fiddle player. When I hear “Faded Love,” I can feel every nuance of the fiddle’s plaintive melody because my father-in-law and Jim both played “Orange Blossom Special” and “Faded Love” each time they played their fiddles.  

Life is often full of faded love. When someone you loved is gone from your life forever, eventually your own survival depends on letting it fade into the recesses of your mind, settle deep in your soul, and tackle life without that person.

True love fades, but it doesn’t disappear. Everyone you love leaves an indelible mark that becomes undeniably a part of you.

My life has been enriched by the two men I loved and married. Harold and Jim had different personalities but they were both intelligent men with loving hearts.  

From Jim I learned to love travel, camping, and country music.  Another lesson learned from our marriage was that you didn’t have to be rich to enjoy life.  He also taught me to be generous and to realize someone was always worse off than we were. One of Jim’s philosophies was that if you could solve a problem by throwing a little money at it, it wasn’t really a problem. Sometimes I have to remind myself of that lesson. When dementia changed everything, I learned to live in the moment and not think about the man he was or what the future held for us.

Harold had more faith in my abilities than I did. He mentored me at work and taught me more than I ever learned in college. When we no longer worked together, he continued to support my hobbies. He designed covers for my books, formatted the interiors, wrote a program to highlight possible grammatical errors, uploaded the books and patiently worked his way through the pitfalls of publication. He supported my music and was the one who set up my first solo gig. One day I was practicing, and to my surprise, he said “You are really good.”  Harold mentored me on farming, investments, and dozens of PC tricks and tools. He also taught me that everything that happened in my life was what made me the person that I am.

Although I usually heard only the tune of faded love, the lyrics tell a heartbreaking story of a lost love. It begins with reading letters from a loved one and remembering the past with every heartbeat. The strength of the love is that instead of forgetting this precious loved one, the longing increases over time.

I believe that the most shocking experience for me as being twice widowed is how the pain can break through all the protective defenses that I’ve built throughout the years. The heartbreak can be a tidal wave of grief brought on by any number of mementos. I can see a photo, a handwritten note, or hear a song, and find myself immersed in memories while liquid love rolls down my cheeks.

Not all memories bring about sadness. Sometimes, I have to laugh at the quirky things Jim used to do or the times Harold’s poor hearing made him mishear what I said to him. Yes, love may fade, but the memories, feelings, and stories remain to bring comfort for the rest of my days.

 

Copyright © April 2026 by L. S. Fisher

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