THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS LIFE by DAVID BYRNE
The video I have here was done by a fan and is incomplete, but it has the complete song. I love the strings on this song. David Byrne has 2 albums from the early 2000's that feature some great string arrangements. Be sure to check them out if you're the checking out kind of person.
"The other side of this life," the meaning of this song seems to be clear to me in spite of my limited skill to interpret lyrics. This is about dying, and the afterlife. This feels fitting to tie into the bizarre thing that happened to me a few weeks ago.
In 2005 my Grandpa Mick died. I was close to him, he was a big part of my life growing up. Throughout his life he had several rings, including 3 different wedding rings. I was lucky to be able to inherit one of these wedding rings.
For about 3 years or so I wore the ring every day on my right hand. Not only does the ring have special meaning for me, I like the way it looks.
I was devastated about 2 years ago when the ring disappeared. I rarely took it off, but when I did, I would place in on the corner of my dresser so as not to lose it. If I remember right, I had placed it there one night before going to sleep and the next morning it was gone, without a trace.
I looked everywhere for it. I tore my dresser apart and checked every nook and cranny of my bedroom. I was riddled with guilt and lost sleep over the loss. About every 3 months I would look again for it without success. I lamented the loss to my wife and told her to keep her eyes peeled, even though I was starting to lose hope that it would ever turn up.
But sure enough, it did turn up about 2 weeks ago!
On that morning I had already left for work and my wife had moved a few things around in the fridge. The next time she went to the fridge, there was the ring, sitting there in plain sight on the top shelf!
I'm baffled by all of this. The only logical story that makes sense is this: The ring fell from my dresser two years ago. My daughter, Lucy, was playing with it and placed it in the door of the refrigerator. Next, a sticky jar of jam ended up on top of the ring where the ring stuck. A few years pass and Megan moves the jar, and the ring goes with it, but somehow falls onto the top shelf.
(side note) This makes it sound like we never clean our fridge. It may not be as clean as some folks' fridges, but I can assure you we do clean it.
Based on the bizarre circumstance of this whole story, my other theory makes more sense: The ghost of my grandpa Mick took the ring for safe keeping. He opened our fridge looking for a can of coca cola classic. (The man loved coke, I'll bet he drank a six pack of it each day of his adult life up until he died at 97.) Once he saw the coke wasn't there, he decided to play a trick on me and placed the ring in the fridge. The man had a sense of humor, so who knows?
Whatever the mystery, I'm grateful to have the ring. And I hope grandpa's having a great time on "the other side of this life."
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