Diamond Mine

My husband of 48 years, Joel Primack, died two months ago.

I can’t predict what will make me cry or when. We did everything but his scientific research together: we shopped and cooked together, traveled, raised a child, puzzled over the philosophical meaning of his cosmological discoveries, wrote books, gave talks, threw parties. Our lives together are spinning through my consciousness, memories all out of order.

Music saves me.

I come back to this song I wrote about him 30 years ago.

Diamond Mine

First time I saw you, you were talking

People paid attention when you spoke

But more than your words

Goodness was what I heard

Shining like a galaxy, solid as an oak

All the reasons I loved you that day

All the reasons I chose to stay

All the reasons I traveled so far

Pale before the knowledge of what you truly are

You have my heart

You get my time

You have a big piece of my faith

You are a diamond mine

It’s decades now we’ve been together

And in the good, pain has been interspersed

But I’m not keeping score

With you I’m never bored

More than love and laughter, you expand my universe

Seeker of truth, believer in none

Sharper than a laser, childlike in fun

After all these years together, who’d think it was true?

But I’m falling in love in a brand new way with you

You have my heart

You get my time

You have a big piece of my faith

You are a diamond mine

You are my diamond mine