Joel's Song

After my husband Joel Primack died, I felt a kind of blank emptiness. I had lost the context that had surrounded me all my adult life. I woke up every day with no structure to my personal life, no one here. The reliability of home gone. The house was here, but not the home. And larger still, I felt the world’s loss.

Joel was a person of enormous impact not only on our understanding of the universe – how it evolves, what it’s made of, how and why galaxies formed -- but on our understanding of the role scientific knowledge and thinking must play in the politics of a thriving society.

I wrote this song in the first two weeks after his death. I feel as though it’s not so much about Joel as for him – for his legacy, to recognize and appreciate the love and work he put into our world.

I have made this song into a little movie, showing visuals and lyrics.