A Fallen Angel Under A Dark Moon

Make a Smilebox greeting

My friend, bandmate, and brother, Denver Patrick O'Reilly passed away on Friday at 11:42pm... His funeral is in 40 minutes, and I'm still not ready to say goodbye... Perhaps I never will be... His passing has left a broken, empty space in my heart... And part of the music has died...

But there is still my Beloved, who held me upright this morning, and who will again tonight... And though he never got to know Denny well, I think he grieves his passing too... For what might have been, and now never can be... And for the pain he feels when my heart feels it...

The Smilebox (ironic name) above is for Denny... And the song below for my Beloved... The song fits what he speaks to me, the words he speaks that comfort me...

Breath In Breath Out by Mat Kearney

Breath in, breathe out
Tell me all of your doubt
If everybody bleeds this way - just the same
Breath in, breathe out
Move on and break down
If everyone goes away - I will stay

We push and pull, and I fall down sometimes
And I'm not letting go
You hold the other line
'Cause there is a light
In your eyes, in your eyes

Hold on, hold tight
From out of your sight
And everything keeps moving on, moving on
Hold on, hold tight
Make it throught another night
And everyday there comes the sun - with the dawn

We push and pull, and I fall down sometimes
I'm not letting go
You hold the other line
'Cause there is a light
In your eyes, in your eyes
There is a light
In your eyes, in your eyes

Breath in and breath out
Breath in and breath out
Breath in and breath out
Breath in and breath out

Look left, look right - to the moon and the night
Everything under the stars is in your arms
'Cause there is a light
In your eyes, in your eyes
There is a light
In your eyes, in your eyes
There is a light
In your eyes, in your eyes
There is a light
In your eyes, in your eyes

I haven't written, *really* written, in such a long time... So much had been going on in my life that it was difficult to know where to start... I've been over in this blog before how I feel about our foray into fame and fortune... And I covered my Mother's diagnosis of leukaemia... But this most recent blow is the hardest to deal with... I hesitate even typing it out, because that almost seems to make it more real... And I don't want it to be real...

Our drummer, my bandmate, my *brother* in all but blood - our laughing joking goofy Denny - is dying... It seems he's been dying a long time, we just didn't know it...

A little over a month ago, he starting having severe stomach pains and occasional bouts of nausea... When he collapsed backstage after a gig, we got an emergency appointment at the clinic... They did some tests, and set him up with an appointment for a gastroenterologist, for what they believed was an ulcer... He never made that appointment, because he had another attack at a gig, this time coughing up blood, in addition to the stomach pains and nausea... So we went to the ER... Many hours later, after some extensive tests, they were still unsure how to definatively diagnose him, but made him an appointment with the hospital's oncologist... When his diagnosis was in, it was nothing we'd expected... He has gastric cancer, which had already metastisised to his liver, and caused large ulcer-like lesions in his stomach... He's since undergone surgery to remove part of his liver...

The prognosis isn't good... He will also have to undergo surgery to remove parts of his stomach as well... And as his liver has been compromised, he runs a risk of liver failure... He will also have chemo or radio, or both... But all of these are palliative, they don't generally result in a cure... They only extend his time...

He comes home from the hospital today, though, and I should be happy about that... But I'm not... I know that sounds horrible, but it was hard enough to put on my happy face while visiting him... With him home, I can't afford to break down... I can't afford to cry...

Not that I always want to cry, either... Sometimes I want to scream, to shout at the top of my lungs... I want someone to blame... Not this damned impersonal disease, someone I can hit and bludgeon to pieces for stealing our Denny away... That's how it feels... Like he is being stolen away from us, a day at a time... And I feel helpless, because there is nothing I can do, or say... "It will be alright..." But it won't, will it...? I can't reassure him, because there isn't a happy ending... I can only pretend that a few months is enough time to say goodbye to a decade and a half of friendship, love, and brotherhood... I can only smile brittle smiles and say "I love you..." and ask him what he wants to do today... Because now every day is the only time he'll ever have to do it...

I want to make a great magic - like the ancient tales, not the feeble glimmerings and glamours of the magic I possess... I want to weave the torn threads of his life back together and bind it to him so strongly that he could never die... But I can't... I don't possess such magic... I doubt anyone ever did really... And it's no solace at all that I *know* he will still exist even after... I want him *here*... With us...

I don't know how to end this entry... There's so much to say, and no words to say them...

And you, my brother, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray
Do not go gentle into that good night
Rage, rage against the dying of the light