While My Guitar Gently Weeps
The coincidences in my life never fail to amaze me. What might seem random to most aligns perfectly in a connect the dots sort of a way in the mind of aboynamedstu.
Not that I know what to do with the connectivity. Other than scratch my head and think, what the fuck.
Sometimes I'll share with My Lovely Bride (if we can have a conversation that isn't commandeered by the Boy(s).) Or. I'll BLOG about it. Which is my goofy way of releasing it back from whence it came.
Let's begin in the middle of this story. The Dallas Mavericks swept the LA Lakers on Sunday. I'm not much of a basketball fan. Not even one that jumps on the band wagon. The reason I noted this Mavs win is that my friend Bill would have been a pig in shit over it. Happy. He was obsessed with the Mavs. And the fact that he died damn near a year ago seems cruelly coincidental as the Western Finals will go down around the anniversary of said death. Which also happens to be the day after what would be (or is, I'm not sure what the protocol is on that) his 73rd birthday.
Which is what I was considering in the hot tub Mother's Day evening.
The Team was at Cottonwood Art Festival. And I found myself alone (a rare treat for aboynamestu.) Drinking a beer and relaxing as I listened to the iPod. I was thinking about Bill, and my Mom (it being Mother's Day) and another friend who's Mom is at the end of a very long fight with (FUCK) cancer.
Which was connected because Bill and my friend knew each other from poker. They were (are) both from Iowa. And had shared their own cancer stories. Bill and his fight. My friend and his Mom's fight.
It was this friend, that another friend and I were talking about at the beginning of this story. He had went up to Iowa to see his Mom earlier in the week, and upon his return had been promptly called back by his Dad. The end was nigh. Or so the doctor said.
It's hard to explain what it is like to be told someone you love as much as a parent only has x amount of time to live. Then if you don't reside in the same town or state, the challenge (and expense) of busting your ass to get there before the end. Only death doesn't follow any neat timetable. Death comes when it wants. So you sit there and pray that your loved one isn't in pain, as you watch each labored breath, wondering if it is the last, and ask yourself if you did the proper dose of morphine (while wondering if you shouldn't just dump the whole fucking vial down their throat to end their misery.)
Meanwhile. Life goes on. A palliative expression that is a kick in the crotch for those dealing with death.
Life is going on while you sit and watch your loved one die. Worrying about the concerns of the real world, jobs, family, paying bills, while also trying to be present in a way that our society doesn't prepare us for in dealing with death. The guilty feelings of wanting it to happen sooner than later, because life is going on, and the end game, short of a miracle that you want to happen but realize probably won't, is death.
It's hard and fucked up in a way that is hard to explain.
Which is all what i was thinking in the hot tub as I drank my beer by my lonesome listening to music and watching the clouds float by overhead when track 13 came onto my iPod. I have a thing about the number 13—a triskaidekaphobia thing. And the fact that out of nearly 5000 songs that could have played number 13 was Kite by U2 was the synchronistic kick in the nuts I didn't need on Mother's Day. The fact that the iPod clock showed that it was 6:13 didn't help either.
Later the Team gathered around the TV to watch The Simpsons (new episode titled Homer Scissorhands.) One of the stories was about Bart's friend Milhouse watching the first part of Finding Nemo, a part of the movie his mother had kept hidden (funnily enough we did the same thing with the Elder Boy when he was little.) Milhouse freaks out in horror, huddled behind sofa cushions, when he learns that Nemo did have a mother. But she died. This realization making him realize just how short and precious life can be.
The coincidences in my life never fail to amaze me. What might seem random to most aligns perfectly in a connect the dots sort of a way in the mind of aboynamedstu.
Not that I know what to do with the connectivity.
So I release it here today.
Hoping that Bill somehow knows what the Mavs have done and that I miss him. And praying my friend is doing as well as he can do when he's watching his Mom die over Mother's Day weekend.
I've been there. Not to imply my there was (is) the same as his there. Even though his there brings back my there poignantly.
Until I BLOG again...I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping.
Not that I know what to do with the connectivity. Other than scratch my head and think, what the fuck.
Sometimes I'll share with My Lovely Bride (if we can have a conversation that isn't commandeered by the Boy(s).) Or. I'll BLOG about it. Which is my goofy way of releasing it back from whence it came.
Let's begin in the middle of this story. The Dallas Mavericks swept the LA Lakers on Sunday. I'm not much of a basketball fan. Not even one that jumps on the band wagon. The reason I noted this Mavs win is that my friend Bill would have been a pig in shit over it. Happy. He was obsessed with the Mavs. And the fact that he died damn near a year ago seems cruelly coincidental as the Western Finals will go down around the anniversary of said death. Which also happens to be the day after what would be (or is, I'm not sure what the protocol is on that) his 73rd birthday.
Which is what I was considering in the hot tub Mother's Day evening.
The Team was at Cottonwood Art Festival. And I found myself alone (a rare treat for aboynamestu.) Drinking a beer and relaxing as I listened to the iPod. I was thinking about Bill, and my Mom (it being Mother's Day) and another friend who's Mom is at the end of a very long fight with (FUCK) cancer.
Which was connected because Bill and my friend knew each other from poker. They were (are) both from Iowa. And had shared their own cancer stories. Bill and his fight. My friend and his Mom's fight.
It was this friend, that another friend and I were talking about at the beginning of this story. He had went up to Iowa to see his Mom earlier in the week, and upon his return had been promptly called back by his Dad. The end was nigh. Or so the doctor said.
It's hard to explain what it is like to be told someone you love as much as a parent only has x amount of time to live. Then if you don't reside in the same town or state, the challenge (and expense) of busting your ass to get there before the end. Only death doesn't follow any neat timetable. Death comes when it wants. So you sit there and pray that your loved one isn't in pain, as you watch each labored breath, wondering if it is the last, and ask yourself if you did the proper dose of morphine (while wondering if you shouldn't just dump the whole fucking vial down their throat to end their misery.)
Meanwhile. Life goes on. A palliative expression that is a kick in the crotch for those dealing with death.
Life is going on while you sit and watch your loved one die. Worrying about the concerns of the real world, jobs, family, paying bills, while also trying to be present in a way that our society doesn't prepare us for in dealing with death. The guilty feelings of wanting it to happen sooner than later, because life is going on, and the end game, short of a miracle that you want to happen but realize probably won't, is death.
It's hard and fucked up in a way that is hard to explain.
Which is all what i was thinking in the hot tub as I drank my beer by my lonesome listening to music and watching the clouds float by overhead when track 13 came onto my iPod. I have a thing about the number 13—a triskaidekaphobia thing. And the fact that out of nearly 5000 songs that could have played number 13 was Kite by U2 was the synchronistic kick in the nuts I didn't need on Mother's Day. The fact that the iPod clock showed that it was 6:13 didn't help either.
Later the Team gathered around the TV to watch The Simpsons (new episode titled Homer Scissorhands.) One of the stories was about Bart's friend Milhouse watching the first part of Finding Nemo, a part of the movie his mother had kept hidden (funnily enough we did the same thing with the Elder Boy when he was little.) Milhouse freaks out in horror, huddled behind sofa cushions, when he learns that Nemo did have a mother. But she died. This realization making him realize just how short and precious life can be.
The coincidences in my life never fail to amaze me. What might seem random to most aligns perfectly in a connect the dots sort of a way in the mind of aboynamedstu.
Not that I know what to do with the connectivity.
So I release it here today.
Hoping that Bill somehow knows what the Mavs have done and that I miss him. And praying my friend is doing as well as he can do when he's watching his Mom die over Mother's Day weekend.
I've been there. Not to imply my there was (is) the same as his there. Even though his there brings back my there poignantly.
Until I BLOG again...I look at you all see the love there that's sleeping.
Well said. Thank you.
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