Remembering When the Nightmare Really Began

It has been two years to the day that my mother phoned me to say the malignancy entered her lymph nodes. The doctor handed down the death sentence. Remembering a false-alarm scare but a month before, I called my own mother a filthy fucking liar that day. If this was a joke, I was not laughing, and my humor's as twisted, if not moreso, than my spine. Her tears spoke only in truth. I had to own up to the fact that my mother was going to die far sooner than I ever dreamed or wanted.

I really try not to think about it. Concentrate on the slate autumn day outside my window. Brew some tea and listen to some music.

But it's there. Just like the anniversary of my grandmother's death, the realization of the date strikes from the shadows and hangs about like persistent cobwebs. It is inescapable. Whiskey and a lobotomy could not remove the knowledge of the fact.

It's there. Like the stiffness in my twisted spine from a combination of the barometer and five days straight of doing the gig. An ache. Sometimes, dull, sometimes stabbing. The pain, I have come to realize, is an inevitable consequence.

So it goes...