Legacies

The shock of hearing the word cancer and the name of a dear musician friend of mine in the same breath stuns me and leaves me feeling betrayed and outraged, furious at the unfairness of fate, and helpless. It's a combination I've heard too often with people I care for, people who have lived good lives and who deserve far better. There is an emptiness without them.

I listen to the meant to be comforting words about how it's not how long you live but how well, about making the most of the time you're given and making a difference, but they're hollow. They don't compensate for the loss or the pain and no matter what you may leave behind, it isn't the same as staying to finish what you've started, not the same as being here for those who love you. The missing never really ends although with time it may lessen. Given enough time and practice, you can learn to live with anything, my daddy would say, and while that's true, it's still an obscenity to be taken before your time, an affront to the lives you have touched and changed. Those we love are never gone if we keep them in our hearts, I'm told, but it's cold comfort - a legacy, no matter how impressive or soul stirring it may be, is still not much more than a memory, not touchable or huggable, not there to listen or share or bring solace. I treasure my memories but would trade any one of them, anytime, for the real thing - maybe it's this more than anything else that we all have in common. To be left behind is an experience we all understand and at the same time can't begin to comprehend.

Cancer doesn't care about memories or legacies, about families or friends or suffering, about the music that might not be be played, the poetry that might never be written, the art that might never be exhibited. That falls to the rest of us along with the process of keeping company with the illness, of smiling when we want to cry, of having faith despite the odds, of being there to witness these lives, imperfect as they may be. No refunds, no returns, no exceptions.

So we will gather together, make music, raise money for hospital bills and doctors and chemotherapy. We will comfort and be grateful for each other and try not to look too far ahead. It won't be enough but it will have to do.