Where do I start?
My head is RIGHT fucked up now.
And I am TOO calm for my own good.
We have spent most of the week in the Hospice.
Sitting with Helen.
Three times already we were told to gather all the family to say goodbye.
But my Sis is a fighter!
She so does not want to leave us, and her children.
She has two daughters, they are so strong, I am so proud of them.
And six sons, who, like her six brothers, are trying to be strong.
And one sister, my kid sister Rena, they are SO united!
Even tho' they were born 20 years apart.
We, the boys, spend our time telling silly jokes, amusing each other, typical man-way
of getting through stressful times.
And the girls, our sisters and wives, see that we cope in our own stupid way.
And still love us.
And Mam.
Her heart is broken.
She asks why her firstborn is being taken.
She says it is her who should go first.
She says that at 84, she has had a good life, and her child should live on.
Twice in as many days I have had to leave my family and 'put on my happy face' to entertain wedding parties.
Which is what I do for a living.
I don't know where I get the strength from.
I really don't.
Somehow, I have learned to 'become' the performer.
Does that make me an uncaring bastard?
Or, have I , through age and life experience, come to terms with reality?
With life.
And death.
I think maybe I have learned to put grief 'in a box'.
In a box which HAS to be opened.
But opened when the time is right.
'After the show'
For the show must go on.
Is life a show, which must go on?
We are a big family, and all of us weak, in our own way.
But together, in these past couple of weeks especially, we have drawn such great strength from each other.
I did not take my phone to the gig tonight.
I had to be in my happy place for my clients.
And they had a great night.
And I lost myself in them.
I am home now, and I must switch my phone on.
I am scared.
I draw from your strength.
Goodnight my friends.
