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February 8th, 2013 09:33 amAnother music friend died last night.
Pat had been fighting pulmonary fibrosis for years; he was home with care after being in the hospital for two weeks. He was an amazing guitar player, a rock-solid rhythm, and a character. He's also the person I knew best and had seen most recently out of the deaths in my music circle.
I suppose this is what happens when the majority of your circle of friends is decades older than you.
I found out about Don on Tuesday; I never knew his last name, hadn't been included in the announcement email, and had no idea they were talking about someone I knew. It wasn't until someone mentioned his wife Kay -- accordeon and fiddle player extraordinaire -- that I realized they were talking about Kay's Don, tall-lanky Don, easy smile and great-appreciation-for-classicly-trained-fiddlers Don. He was instrumental in setting up the Oly contra dance scene, he'd been battling leukemia for years.
On Saturday I played at the official Celebration of Life for Barb M, whom I played with way back in the day as a young squirt just getting into the Irish music community. I was 16; she was stern looking, imposing, and an amazing improviser. She also wasn't stern, and didn't mean to come off as imposing -- in fact, Barb was fascinating for how little her interior matched her exterior. She died in December, and we had an unofficial wake two days later, full of music.
I'm not a crier; I get the cold, quiet kind of grief, and for deaths like these -- people I liked, people I respected, but not people who were part of my day-to-day life -- often not even that. It bothers me a bit. Pat's death hits the most, because he's the person I saw the most, the one I'd played with the most in the last few years. I'm sorry I'll never be able to play a tune with him again, sad that I didn't send him the silly videos I'd found for him just a day sooner, and glad I went to his 70th birthday bash... but I feel like I should feel more, and I hate that at Barb's Celebration of Life I was looking at my circle of music friends and thinking "Who's next?"
In an hour or two I'm going out to lunch with my mom and our dear friend Nancy. Nancy has already fought cancer and won, only to get parkinson's -- which, yes, isn't as dire, but to watch a musician lose their ability to play because of tremors is hard. I need to spend more time with her; she's one of the sweetest people on the planet, and as she loses her ability to play for more than an hour or so I see less and less of her at the normal music events, and I need to make time. I don't like to think of it in terms of 'in case', but... in case.
Pat had been fighting pulmonary fibrosis for years; he was home with care after being in the hospital for two weeks. He was an amazing guitar player, a rock-solid rhythm, and a character. He's also the person I knew best and had seen most recently out of the deaths in my music circle.
I suppose this is what happens when the majority of your circle of friends is decades older than you.
I found out about Don on Tuesday; I never knew his last name, hadn't been included in the announcement email, and had no idea they were talking about someone I knew. It wasn't until someone mentioned his wife Kay -- accordeon and fiddle player extraordinaire -- that I realized they were talking about Kay's Don, tall-lanky Don, easy smile and great-appreciation-for-classicly-trained-fiddlers Don. He was instrumental in setting up the Oly contra dance scene, he'd been battling leukemia for years.
On Saturday I played at the official Celebration of Life for Barb M, whom I played with way back in the day as a young squirt just getting into the Irish music community. I was 16; she was stern looking, imposing, and an amazing improviser. She also wasn't stern, and didn't mean to come off as imposing -- in fact, Barb was fascinating for how little her interior matched her exterior. She died in December, and we had an unofficial wake two days later, full of music.
I'm not a crier; I get the cold, quiet kind of grief, and for deaths like these -- people I liked, people I respected, but not people who were part of my day-to-day life -- often not even that. It bothers me a bit. Pat's death hits the most, because he's the person I saw the most, the one I'd played with the most in the last few years. I'm sorry I'll never be able to play a tune with him again, sad that I didn't send him the silly videos I'd found for him just a day sooner, and glad I went to his 70th birthday bash... but I feel like I should feel more, and I hate that at Barb's Celebration of Life I was looking at my circle of music friends and thinking "Who's next?"
In an hour or two I'm going out to lunch with my mom and our dear friend Nancy. Nancy has already fought cancer and won, only to get parkinson's -- which, yes, isn't as dire, but to watch a musician lose their ability to play because of tremors is hard. I need to spend more time with her; she's one of the sweetest people on the planet, and as she loses her ability to play for more than an hour or so I see less and less of her at the normal music events, and I need to make time. I don't like to think of it in terms of 'in case', but... in case.
