Leonard Cohen - Tonight Will Be Fine: youtube.com/watch?v=e5MUdNyaYoo
I characteristically do not get worked up when celebrities, artists, politicians, radicals, musicians, people I generally don't know or have never met get sick or die, even if I've followed their work or life. I just found out, though, that Christopher Hitchens has cancer and says, himself, that his chances are poor. It's greatly saddening.
I'm in the middle of reading Hitch 22, Christopher Hitchens' memoirs, and I suppose that plays a part. I've been heavily invested in this man's life and memories since opening the cover, reflecting upon my own life and memories in relation to his words as he moves through the spheres of schooling, writing, traveling and discovering culture, art, literature, kindness, sadness and disgust at what comes upon him. He does these things to a degree much greater than I, but none the less I relate and read myself into the words.
A dear friend from my teenage years is now a nurse. She told me, some years ago, that it's surprising how many people have, get, cancer. I've had trouble relating to this as I've known few who have been stricken. Or, better said, I've known few close kin who have been stricken. Though, I know one, who I love and admire though I hold him often at a distance.
A friend of mine, one of the best song writers I've ever come in contact with, one of the best story tellers I've yet known, someone I've seen both in strength and vulnerability, sat me down last year in a room with a mutual friend and a bartender and told me he had cancer. I didn't know what to say, do, but to offer my help should he need it. It was a fairly emotionless exchange. I did, though, later that night, after talking with a mutual friend who told me he has little to no chance of living (who works as a cancer councilor), find myself buckling my knees as I struggled through a night of work in a bar, my dearest friend there and knowing my trouble but so distant and away. I don't know what happened to me but I was a wreck and cannot recall ever feeling so alone and prone to hurt.
My cancer stricken friend has been lucky enough to pull through for about a year since and is recovering. His body has been torn apart, literally (he has a hole in his stomach and cannot defecate, it all flowing into an attached bag), but he stands.
He came to my apartment in Kensington once and sat on my couch, listening to this song repeatedly on my record player. I didn't know it then but later discovered he had been memorizing the lyrics, and I've heard him singing it since, beautifully, among many drunks.
No comments:
Post a Comment