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Gregory Ormson

Writer, musician, yoga-loving motorcyclist.

Of Gardens and Graves, a story from Hawaii

Gathering with friends to celebrate my birthday in Hawaii, my good fortune tricked me into thinking I had earned such leisure. Ocean waves crashed up on the island and giant palm leaves swayed in the wind. Hawaiian music playing from a house next door accompanied the party as we talked our way through the euphoria that comes from the first sips of alcohol.

That afternoon I started playing, for probably the 300th time, “The Last Nail” a song by Dan Fogelberg. It’s not a love song or a song with a happy romantic arc, but a song I had turned to when I was a long way from home or in a time of introspection – like a birthday.

Its about the final nail which closed the coffin of a relationship. Realizing it had ended, he delivers a poignant and deep-diving lyric.

“I hear you’ve taken on a husband and child and live somewhere in Pennsylvania

I never thought you’d ever sever the string, but I can’t blame you none.”

I continued and played The Last Nail’s lyrical sarcophagus to the end.

 

“We walked together through the gardens and graves

I watched you grow to be a woman

living on promises that nobody gave to no one

they were given to no one.”

For years, the song was a catharsis and helped me accept the reality of a gradual goodbye. She wasn’t in Pennsylvania, but she lived close to Pennsylvania, and a long way from where I was.

On the beach, the sun moved from a bright white to a muted orange as my party day crawled toward dusk.… read more...

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