I’ve always hated long and winding roads. Give me a thoroughfare with a clear view of landmarks, signposts, and traffic signals any day.
Life, though, has a way of laughing at our preferences. Sooner or later, many of us end up on something closer to the road Paul McCartney wrote about in the Beatles’ 1970 song “The Long and Winding Road.”
McCartney wrote the song while the Beatles were being pulled apart by business conflicts, bruised feelings, and clashing personalities. He sat at the piano and composed a melancholy tune that he sang largely on his own. Paul’s voice sounds lonely, almost like an ending.
And it was. The Beatles were nearing the end of their journey.
As a new widow, I could relate. The lyrics “Why leave me standing here? / Let me know the way” echoed how I felt on a road without Fred, who had never minded those long, winding curves through the hilltowns of western Massachusetts.
When the road disappears into the mist, sometimes we have to make our own signposts.
Mine came the day before Fred died.
I told him something I hadn’t rehearsed or even planned to say. The words seemed to rise from someplace deeper than thought.
“I’ll keep you in mind for everything that happens with the kids,” I said.
If this had been a Hollywood movie, Fred would have opened his eyes and said something profound. Maybe, “I needed to hear that.”
But real life doesn’t always hand us the scene we want.
Fred stayed silent.
I like to think he heard me, but at least I knew what I’d said. I would keep bringing him into the conversation when it came to the kids — not as the man dementia had turned him into, but as the Fred I knew before the disease took over. The guy with the mischievous sense of humor. The big heart for anyone down and out. The father who told Amanda and Rio scary Halloween stories. The guy who would forever be sitting at our kitchen table eating his bagel with brie.
My deathbed promise to Fred didn’t give me a roadmap for grieving. Nothing could. But it gave me one direction I could trust. When life turned toward the kids, I would keep Fred in mind. That helped me see how I might live alone without leaving him behind. Of course, that doesn’t mean the road will cooperate.
Just ask Sir Paul. He wrote “The Long and Winding Road” as a spare piano ballad, but producer Phil Spector added lush orchestration and a choir. The result went to Number One, though McCartney hated the dressed-up version. But Spector’s version didn’t have to be the end of the road. Decades later, Let It Be…Naked stripped away much of Spector’s gloss and brought the song closer to the simpler sound McCartney had wanted.
McCartney has described the long and winding road as a metaphor for the unattainable. Well, it could have been worse. The narrator may never reach the door he’s seeking, but at least he keeps moving toward it. So did McCartney. He went on to build a successful solo career and was still performing into his 80s.
“The Long and Winding Road” does not make me love winding roads. I still prefer a straight lane with an unobscured view. But the song helps me admit something I didn’t understand when Fred died.
I didn’t need to see the whole road ahead.
I only needed to know what I wanted to carry with me.
Fred was part of that. I could bring him forward while navigating whatever came next. And maybe, somewhere beyond the next bend, I’d even find new company along the way.
If we’re lucky, we can see as far as the next marker. And if it happens to point toward a smoother stretch, I’m not too proud to follow it. Just be sure to give me a GPS and a few rest stops for the journey.
Joan Axelrod-Contrada is a writer who lives in Florence with her two dogs. Sign up for her free quarterly newsletter — complete with links to bonus content such as music videos and fun facts — by emailing her at joanaxelrodcontrada@gmail