Spectacular weekend of shows. Hard weekend of shows.
Last Saturday our show in Frederick got rained out, and with my incredible 20/20 hindsight I now see that was a good thing.
We were in the unenviable position of the venue asking US to make the call re: rain cancelation, and we’d been trying to determine all morning if we should drive out to play our show, finally determining that “hey, you’ve got a HUGE gazebo, if it’s raining we can just invite the crowd up to sit with us!” only to be told that that was the plan for the dog adoption. Which was a highly pertinent piece of information. There’s no way we can play under a gazebo with lots of scared wet dogs.
We stayed home.
And that’s okay because Sunday I ran my open mic and Monday I recorded Acacia and Joey and then we had a full band practice and Tuesday I ran my open mic and Wednesday we had a Live from the Lair with Greg Klyma and Thursday I recorded Acacia Sears and Mark Jaster and Friday we played Monocacy Brewing in Frederick…
And Friday while getting ready to drive out for Monocacy we got the call that Kristen’s stepmother was being moved from the hospital, where she was being treated, to home hospice care… and then as we were setting up the stage at Monocacy we got the call that she’d died.
The rain that was threatening never really came, and in any other mood I’d have gloried in the spray of thick mist and almost-autumnal breezes, but I was worried enough about Kristen that I was more distracted than she was. I told her she was fine sitting out, calling her dad, doing what she needed to do – but she was clear that what she needed to do was WORK.
And so we worked. By which I mean we played.
It was a beautiful night, but an exhausting one. The tacos were some of the best we’ve ever had, and though our crowd was a bit small because of the moist, I think that fit our hearts well.
Saturday we played Dark Horse and it was easy to forget real Life in the absolute GLORY of playing that little bar. High energy, people singing along, meeting people that hopefully will be good people to have met. An annoying conversation about how “ilyAIMY” was impossible to spell, remember, or say and was probably why I was doomed to die in anonymity was an unwelcome addition to the night, but generally, as the Lego Population would sing, everything WAS awesome. We were frenzied.
Frenzied.
Probably because the next morning, after I’d left to go record a Balkan women’s acapella group, Kristen had to drive down to Georgia to take care of her family.
Now – with a couple of hours downtime betwixt said acapella group and yet another open mic – I’m worried about her and about how it’s going to go with her dad and her sister. It’s a long drive. Too much time to think.
Hard weekend of shows.
And from Kristen :
My sweet stepmother Kathryn passed away in Georgia today at age 86. She had some long term health issues that rapidly got worse this past week. She was hospitalized and then arrangements were being made for home hospice, but her time was today at the hospital. Luckily my dad was able to be with her (grab your tissues and read on for more of the story).
They met online, before it was cool. Around 2000, my dad was selling a lot of music & piano stuff on eBay. She bought a piano score from him, they started corresponding (my Dad always likes to chat with his buyers!), and eventually he traveled from upstate NY to the Augusta GA area to meet this southern lady. Pretty soon after, they decided they weren’t getting any younger and tied the knot in NY. His Howard baby grand piano and her Steinway B grand lived in our tiny ranch house living room together. They moved to GA a few years ago for a more aging-friendly house, to be near her family, and where there was also more room for the two pianos!
This week my Dad asked me to order him a little boom box so he could play music for her in the hospital. It arrived today, and he put in a CD of his own playing that was recorded at Troy Musical Hall in NY. After it played for a few minutes, she slipped away. That’s going to stick with me for a long time. 
Both of them have lived with serious health challenges for so long. She was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at age 40. Almost as long ago, my dad started suffering from trigeminal neuralgia (really bad chronic facial pain). They are both cancer survivors. They are one tough couple!!
The next phase is not going to be easy for anyone, but we will muddle through to figure it out as I suppose we all do. I’m so glad they found each other. I really believe that all the challenges we go through in life eventually lead us to the things we were meant for, even if the journey is hard.
Pic is of Dad & Kathryn at our wedding in 2017.