*

I'm not sure how to write about this in a way that can fully match how I feel about it. Being dramatic about it won't change a damn thing. Mom has cancer. Brain cancer, specifically. So it's not a matter of if she'll live or die, but when. And it will be painful, and it will be frightening-- for all of us but of course especially for her, having to helplessly experience her mental and bodily faculties diminishing bit by bit because a tumor is eating them all, replacing them with a useless mass of tissue that knows how to do nothing but grow for growth's sake. All chemo can do is make the time where she's lucid and capable of doing things last a little longer, and she's taking that chance. The fact that this has happened so soon after I finally made her truly proud of me, that I'm away from her for so long, that I can't take care of her the way I know she'll need, kills me. I've been such a fucking terrible son. I've been terrible for her since the fucking day I was born and all I've done since then is try, so desperately, to be good for her, to be what she needs, to keep her happy, to comfort her when her moods swing the wrong way, to make sure I don't do anything to make those moods swing the wrong way, to be there for her when that fucking asshole of a "father" left her, left us, but it was never enough; I could never be good enough for long enough. And she was so fucking good to me anyway, even though I didn't deserve it.

All this is making me remember so much. How everyone in that damn town could see what I was from so early on, how I could never hide quite well enough, how I overheard not only family but neighbors tell her she needed to "do something about" me, that something about me wasn't right, that I wasn't enough of a boy, and even if she said enough in agreement to get them off our backs, she'd never take it out on me like Granddad would. She never tried to make me change-- only adapt, hide, be smart about things. Sometimes she told me she wished I would change for her sake, and that she didn't understand me or why I was the way I am (what she knew about), but she also always told me that those neighbors were busybodies who didn't have the right to tell her how to raise me. She believed that I could make it singing even when I'd completely given up on it. She always said that if people knew what I could do, if they heard my voice, that they'd be able to see beyond anything else.

Even when that wasn't true, singing was and is the one place I truly am undeniably *good*. Perhaps that's another reason I don't like singing more morbid things these days. My LIFE is morbid. Singing is a light I can reach out and touch and hold and feel fill me; it makes me feel whole when everything else is a void. This is the closest I've gotten to my voice making everyone see beyond my badness, my darkness, and it's at a time where darkness is threatening to swallow everything, including my mother.

I didn't want Shann to be the first one I told about this but she was there and she heard the phone call, she heard the wavering in my voice. I feel numb now and I felt numb on the phone call but trying to even utter a single word of it to Shann made me collapse. I wanted to be in so many other peoples' arms before hers. She WAS very kind and she did try her best to comfort me, but she could never know why her being the first one there was so upsetting to me. I was crying about Mom *and* about her (and not even her necessarily, but everything that landed her here) at the same time at points, and she'd never know.

G-d. Just a year ago-- not even a year, half a year-- things were looking better for me than they ever had in my life. I guess I'm still not good enough (and I did ask G-d for an answer to that question, didn't I?). I still don't deserve it.

*

Things feel so strange now. Even more unreal than before. I'll be going about my day and I'll remember Mom's dying. I can't crumple. I can't cry. I can't really react in any visible way. There's no time or place, and even if there were, I'm afraid if I started again I wouldn't be able to stop. It'll just be a thought that enters my mind suddenly, something that stops me near-dead in my tracks for a moment, before I'm forced to shake it off and keep going. It's odd thinking of things like: I've had plenty of practice keeping it moving when things were similarly dreadful. You would think the practice would make it less painful. But it never is. It's not something you get used to, either. Not really. Or, part of you does, I guess. You have to. To get by. But the rest of you's just exhausted.

Nate's still coming over once a week or so. Other times I go over his place, which is even more ostentatious than Jeffrey's (two Ferrari's and a Porsche in the garage, which he was very excited to tell me about, and I had to pretend I knew what he was talking about and cared). He's got a girlfriend of his own, right now-- Rita-- and she seems nice. She'll leave us alone pretty quick after greeting us and seeing if we need anything the same way Shann'll duck out and excuse herself on her own. Like we belong on separate worlds and only intersect by chance.

Anyway, it's been going alright despite... everything. I haven't told him about Mom. I can't yet, for reasons already mentioned (nothing personal). Once we get working-- and that's what we're doing, that's why he's so motivated and excited to be around me-- it all melts away for awhile, into his guitar. Or sometimes it melts, soothes; other times it shakes me out of the stupor I've been walking around in. Lately, with what we've been writing, it's been more of the latter. We're trying to make heavy work. It very much does for him, and even his own singing! We were trying things out with my vocals, and I can sort of make something work, but I'm not sure how to do it properly enough to do it in a sustainable way. Something I might have to get back to, or even see if my old instructor is still around for. When I DO make it work, it's because of a feeling I'm channeling, and that feeling is never a comfortable one. It's like the very first time I did it, the time Nate was so happy with: I was frustrated. I was annoyed! Angry! I don't want to be in that space all the time singing, and especially not by the end of a session or gig. The emotions from singing linger a little bit afterwords, at least for me. I don't want to step off stage angry, or go back into my regular life angry.

This meant that eventually, I suggested Nate try his hand at singing again. It's still something he's reluctant doing in a lead role. There was that one song we wrote a couple years back-- I helped him get his voice to a place we were both comfortable with, for that. But that was a simple part (we made sure it was simple), and I echoed him live to keep him confident. This would be for the entire song. I would be backing vocals, still (both to help, and also to give me something to do). He was still reluctant at first-- even just to get instruction from me, which I offered. But the song was comfortably in his range (another thing I made sure of), and it was just the two of us. "You won't make me do it a million times like you did to Jeff?" You're nowhere NEAR as bad as Jeff, man (always have to remember to add that, they always wanna hear a dude or a man or whatever every so often). So 500,000 times, maximum, I joked. And the joke sealed the deal.

Of course, it wasn't nearly that many times. And so many of the things that needed to be corrected stemmed from some of the few usual sources--breath control, jaw/mouth openness, posture, simple things like that. I always let him know what it was, and helped him fix it. He would flinch a little when I stopped him in the beginning. I didn't notice the first time, but I did after the second. I didn't mention it to him, but I knew what that was, and I had a good idea as to why it was (I do wonder how Walter is with him when they're alone, too...). So I had to make sure he could trust me as a teacher. Was very careful to stay relaxed about things, remembered how well he responded to jokes (maybe another reason Rory's the way he is? I can't blame him for wanting to see Nate crack up the way he does), kept things lighthearted but was firm when I had to be. It was just a day of practice, but he already sounds great for that song, at least. He's a higher-pitched tenor himself (tho not so high as me, ha), but he's got a bit of a natural rasp to it, and leaning into that and a bit of a bad-boy swagger made it work in that heavier context.

And then Shann came back, Nate left, and our worlds switched again. I made dinner. She ate a quarter of it. I pretended not to notice. I only ate a quarter of mine to match. Wondered if she'd mention it. She didn't. I wonder if either of us will bring it up at some point. Then again, there're bigger elephants in the room right now.

*

Figured out a fun activity to do outside the house with Shann-- we'll go shopping, and she'll challenge me to lift something for her. I told her it doesn't have to be something boring-- small would be preferable, of course, but the more interesting or expensive the better. "You can just buy any of this, can't you?" Yeah, but where's the fun in that?? "And when you're caught?" Sweetheart, I'm an expert. "You're a *psycho*." Doesn't preclude me from being an expert! And she changed her tune as soon as I put that beautiful aquamarine-set ring on her index finger. I told her it brings out her eyes quite nicely (it does!) and kissed her hand, and that big red blush of hers crawled up her face. She relented that I was a fun psycho.

Things have gotten both easier and more difficult the longer this goes on. Easier because I know her more and more, and I do like what I've gotten to know. We could be friends, in other circumstances. I try jokes on her, too. She's not the fall out of her chair laughing type-- first she has to play at denial. Eyeroll, wave of the hand, "oh, Jules." (and it is always Jules with her, never Julie). She's so white she can never hide her blushing, though, no matter how many eyerolls she does. I do like making her laugh and I do like making her happy. I like talking to her. She likes gardening, too, so we've done that together and talked about various flowers and plants we've grown or that we like (sunflowers are her favorite-- obviously a very hint-hint kind of thing for her to mention, ha). She's a lot more comfortably small-town than I am, but where we live is slow-paced n' sprawling enough for her (this, though, makes my little lifting shenanigans extra-thrilling/anxious for her).

Things are more difficult exactly because things are getting so easy; because she likes me as much as she does already. There's a fear of letting her down, and that looms larger and larger. If she leaves, I'll have to find someone else to keep Walt from ruining my entire life. It's odd to need someone without loving them. Would Shann understand? Would she even believe it? Hell, I don't even know if Nate would. I'm almost more afraid to tell him. He thinks the world of Walt (which baffles me in one way, but I understand they've known each other for a very long time). He's so fucking easily convinced by him, too. Like with everything with Benny. Ugh, that crushed me. The crew and myself were working so hard, I was running back and forth between band stuff and crew stuff like a mad man, motivated so much by love, and Walt got Nate convinced that it was all some fucking callous power-grab or something.

Ugh. Still so much to worry about, even outside of... the worst of it. Increasingly more to balance on my plate. And Benny's gone, off on another trucking gig. When he's on the road I can't call him-- he calls me. And he can't even do that very often now because of Shann... G-d, we need to win. We really do. For so many damn reasons, we need to win.

*