Crushed. The feeling of doom slides across the sky and I feel like someone is squeezing the life out of me. Breathing reduced to tiny shards of dust. I have to pull it together. I have a flight to get on soon.
Social networking is a peculiar beast. We update strangers with absurdly mundane details of our daily lives. From complaints about our jobs, meals, and traffic to advice about dating and procreating, everyone is an expert, but does anyone care?
I update you with things I find interesting, tours or shows I am doing, music and books I am releasing, and the occasional rant about religion. It’s pretty typical stuff for a musician to be talking about. Rarely do I talk about my private life, my home, or my family. I think the separation provides me with a sense of normality. Which is something I so desperately crave when it comes to my private life. It’s something I need in order to feel sane. Most of you respect that. A few of you crazy obsessive ones don’t, but, I suppose that’s why they invented the “Block” button. Lucky for us all.
I am grateful that you let me have a private life, a world in which wiL Francis, Aiden or William Control do not exist. Where I am just a guy with a weird job that leaves town from time to time.
I suppose that sometimes, I let you in a little further than I should, just so that you know what is happening with me. Or maybe I do it because of the cathartic feeling it creates. I don’t know. Does any one care really?
I received a call from my aunt this morning to let me know that my father passed away.
He has been battling for a long time. His first heart attack back in 2006 nearly killed him. While he was having open heart surgery he had a stroke that paralyzed his right side, making use of his arm non-existent. Since then it’s been a barrage of disasters, from amputating one of his legs, losing his condo to the depravity of the market and living in nursery home after nursery home. It seems like a string of bad luck, but somehow he was always able to see the bright side. I could never understand that about him.
Needless to say, it’s been a private battle, one I haven’t shared with the world. I suppose now that his death has occurred I need to let these demons out somehow.
So please, be patient with me.
This is the last letter that I wrote him a few days ago. I’m not sure if he read it or not.
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Hey Dad,
Just wanted to send a quick update and let you know that I’m still in Europe. I finished producing that record for those “vampire kids” yesterday and I decided to jump on a train this morning to Paris to finish my new book! I can’t wait for you to read it. I know it’s not really your style, perhaps you’ll make an exception because I wrote it!. It’s much better than those CS Lewis books you like to shovel into your noggin. Ha!
It was really nice seeing you before I left. I always leave the nursing home saddened and with a heavy heart, like antique bricks in burlap sacks thrown over my shoulders. I wish I had the money to care for you properly. To hire a nurse with nice curves to give you sponge baths. I know you’d love that. I should have gone to college and became a lawyer or doctor, instead of an artist. Now I understand. I get it. I really do. I suppose things could always be worse though. Look on the bright side, you always tell me.
Have I ever told you how amazing it is that you remain such a jolly old bastard? Even in the face of total annihilation.
Heart attack? “No problem.”
Quadruple bypass surgery? “Bring me some bacon next time you come kid”.
A stroke that paralyzed half your body? “At least I have my other arm.”
Surgery to remove your leg? “I only need one to kick your ass with.”
What a champ you are. I would have fallen apart years ago.
I know I spend a majority of my time out on tour and traveling around while you sit around watching bad re-runs of Miami Vice but hey, at least you’re not digging ditches right?! If anybody heard the way you and I speak to each other about disabilities they would shit their pants. I suppose since you have carte blanche to do such, being that you’re in a wheelchair with only one good leg, (I think). Did you ever hear back from the doctor? Are you going to be able to keep the toes on your good foot?
Remember when they took the leg with the gangrene, you told me that the only prosthetic you would ever wear, would be one made from an elephant tusk. I laughed for a week about that.
Phineas has been asking about you. “Can we go see Grandpa Jeff with the robot leg?” He thinks it’s so cool. I tell him that you’re part Transformer and the glow of excitement that washes over his perfect face is priceless. What a magnificent boy he is. I catch myself, sometimes, just staring at him while he plays with his trains, wondering with intense magnification how I created such a work of art. Truly, he is my greatest creation. Everything else pales in comparison.
Well I should get going, I know Don Johnson and company have some crime to solve and hair to fluff up and I wouldn’t want to take time away from that spectacular display of 80’s brilliance.
I’m going to be home on the 2nd, around 10pm. We’ll probably come up and see you the next day. If you want me to sneak you any cookies or anything just ring the bat phone and use the coded message we came up it. “Celery” Wink Wink.
Now I’m off, into the marvelous history of the old world that surrounds me.
Take Care
I love you
W.
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Hold the ones you love close. Don’t let the clock of life run out before you tell these cherished people that you respect them, that you adore them. For when the nasty hand of time strikes, and the gloom of death drags us into the dust of eternity, we should know in our hearts, that the love and admiration of a thousand roman soldiers is there to carry us through to the end of this magnificent journey.
