In Sickness and in Health | a fool’s tale

Nancy, Frank and Fred | a love triangle
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In Sickness and in Health | a fool’s tale

My heart is full of love. It embraces Fred, my angry liver.

[Please listen to Mercy, from Six Prayers on Six Strings]

Intro

We didn’t say typical vows at our wedding in 1977. We were hippies! Anti-establishment – remember? So we didn’t actually say “in sickness and in health, ’til death do we part.” But boy, my wife certainly had it in her heart. I have not really been tested the way she has the past two years. I hope I would do the same for her: drive ten thousand miles to hospitals in Boston, sacrifice a one-woman show she worked on for ten years only to be overshadowed at the moment of fruition by illness; constantly researching strange ailments and how to cure them. She has been precious, loving, generous, kind, forgiving – nothing but, and I love her for all that and more.

So here’s a little story, but a touch of background first. When we lived in Arlington MA in the late 70’s, we found an old porcelain clown in the garbage. Took it home and named him Fred. He came to represent my alter-ego, my nasty angry insides. And so when we moved in 1980, the last thing I did leaving the house was decide to leave Fred in the closet – a gift to the next tenants – ha! Little would they know! It was supposed to be a gesture of letting him go, letting my past fall away. It didn’t work – ugh!

Meet Fred

My wife is sick of Fred. She’s sick of me – being sick! Fred came back two days ago after promising never to return. Surprise. Surprise!

Here’s a song about life he wrote a long time ago:

Hey ho the Hie dee oH.
I’ll tickle a dream and say it Ho
Blither me Blimey and slay it oH
The bloke is crammed with air to blow.
Hey ho the Hie dee oH.

I’ll join her there in the thicket Ho
To get one a dance with a cricket Bo
The dream blows wild, the flesh grows mold.
The block is jammed with beaus to crow.
Hey ho the Hie dee oH.

It’s a silly a description of life. There’s always someone coming along, ready to grab your spot. Life seems sort of pointless to Fred. Short and nothing but a dance and a dream.

Fred’s a bum

He’s a hobo. He digs through the garbage to find rotten food and worn out clothes.

Fred likes lists, dirty laundry lists. Bad shit!

Fred gripes. He hangs his head. He likes to fight. It makes him feel alive.

Fred mostly talks about himself, except to point out what you are doing wrong! Watch out if he sees you messing up!

Here’s Fred

He’s hungry all the time. Hardly smiles. What a bum.

Fred’s me! He takes over my shitty days. He’s kind of in my bones, or maybe my gut, my liver, impossible to dig out. Until now. I hope! I pray!

Cancer treatments are squeezing him out. It’s just too intense for him: radiation, low carb diet, yoga, meditation and all…Maybe he is the cancer? It’s a theory, right? Does it matter who, what, why my cancer is? Is Fred the anger that ate at my soul for 50 years and started to grow into tumors.

I said my wife is sick of Fred. We talked about him this morning and came up with a theory. We’re getting on in age. We’re dealing with two years of various cancer diagnoses, one eye is nearly blind. I have adopted a very limited and strict diet and I have a morning routine that sometimes takes three hours. It has replaced our sacred morning tea and coffee chat. In some ways we are getting ready to – well, let’s be blunt – permanently separate. I mean the real permanent. Death! The ultimate giving up of all things material, all those precious things we cling to: guitars, music, art, family, home, dreams, and yes, each other.

We spent nearly 40 years doing everything together, in good health. No doctors, period! We toured and gave concerts together. We recorded LPs and CDs and even a few cassettes! I did the engineering, Nancy did the design. Everything together. We raised two beautiful boys together. We bought an old farm in the New Hampshire forest and chop wood to heat the house, live with deer, bear, moose squirrels, weasels and lots of dirt and bugs.

But now, it’s just me. Me and my cancer. It’s my body. Not ours. The needles poke me, not her. She drives me, she holds my hand, she steadies me when I’m dizzy from radiation. She loves me. But she’s not me. I have to do this. On my own. But I miss her. She misses me. It’s tough being separated by illness.

The radiation is inserted, the UTI attacks, life gets rough for a while. Fred rears his ugly head and tells her to leave me alone and stop telling me what to do; how many more calories to eat; how much more water to drink; rest, don’t worry about practicing right now; time for a nap. Snap, bark, yowl! “But I want to be with you, help you!”

A fellow friend in cancer, John Holmquist, one of America’s great guitarists who loves life to the fullest, summed it all up in a very elegant manner in the following poem. I am honored he shared it with me. Nancy edited it down to song size, which I hope to write this fall.

Will I Be Given Time in Full Measure?

John E Holmquist
Edited by Nancy Knowles

Will I be given time
in full measure
to kindle light?
If I have helped you
throw me no bone of thanks.
Thank, instead, the unseen hand
which carves some good,
even with so poor an instrument.
If I have harmed you, forgive me,
let not anger eat away your soul.

In the end, let there be nothing left:
no feelings, no thoughts, no “other.”
Let there only be light.
Let the broken tool be made perfect for the task,
so that only Love remains.

University Heights, Ohio, March, 2003

This Fred (my name for him, and not the original clown mentioned above) was created by Mona Adisa Brooks of Peterborough NH. Please visit her website, or better yet, go to Trumpet Gallery in Peterborough to see her, and other artists’, work.

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Save the date, please…

It is with great delight we announce that our dear friend and colleague Bob Ward and the Boston Classical Guitar Society will present a concert in my honor this October 25th. The concert of my compositions will feature Bob with Alex Dunn playing Duo Sonata #1; Chris Ladd, guitar and Ása Guðjónsdóttir, violin, on Gryphon, Violin Sonata #1, David William Ross on Cyrcles, Sonata #3, Daniel Acsadi playing Débil del Alba and more.

The concert will be held at the First Lutheran Church at 299 Berklee St. in Boston. Pre-concert talk will begin at 7:30, concert at 8pm. Hope you can make it. —Frank