The last visit
I got to bed at about 2:30 and woke up at 6:30. I had a shower and shaved, as usual about five days later than I should have.
I was on the 7:45 streetcar heading for University.
At 8:30 I got to the 14th floor of Princess Margaret Hospital and walked into Gord's room. He was asleep, Nicole was awake, close beside him.
I put my stuff down. I opened my bag and got out the Korg DDM-110 aka "Drumtone 2000" - the drum machine at the heart of the Suck Trumpets. Sometime since our last recording session earlier this year, it finally went and died on me. I don't know why I brought it - except that I had this reflex to produce another symbol, another talisman. It was useful to recognize how useless it was to us.
Nicole asked if I wanted time alone with Gord. I said yes, yes. On his last lucid day, this past Wednesday, as I was leaving Gord apologized that he hadn't had more time for me. Heather recognized this as an expression of a wish as well as a regret. He wanted that time as much as I did.
Nicole went for coffee; I got about half an hour. It was more than I expected.
I said a lot of things. I didn't come with a script, or an agenda.
Gord! - his eyes opened, and he looked at me. He never closed his eyes again while we talked - a major feat by now.
I hear you're done. It's so hard. Nobody wants you to go.
I want you to know how much I love you and how important you are to me.
I wish we had had more time.
I was thinking about how pissed off you got at me when I freaked out over Ailsa, and we didn't talk for ten years, but you came back. That was an important lesson - that my best friends leave me alone with my bullshit when I freak out, but then they come back. A lot like what Heather did this past month.
Thank you for coming back. It has been so good to hang out with you the last couple years.
I finished the 100th anniversary of dada track on Friday - did you hear it?
There was other stuff.
And, at the very end, I realized something, and said it: almost all of my best friends have been women. You are probably the best BOY friend I have ever had.
Thank you Gord. I love you.
But before we got there, in the middle, his eyes scrunched up, and the corners of his mouth turned down, and silently, he bared his teeth and he shook. He cried. And we cried together. Cried over this stupid, useless situation, with him there dying and everyone hurting so bad.
The bed was infuriating, so wide, so walled, impossible to get close. At one point I put my arm lightly around his waist and buried my face in his shoulder. at another I tried to lie on the arm of the reclining chair next to him.
His left arm had no strength. But at some point he began lifting his right hand up, and down, up and down.
What do you want, Gord?
Those soft, low moans. I couldn't understand.
I crossed to that side of the bed and held his raised hand. He shook it free and gestured again.
Do you want the bed up? He nodded weakly.
I put it up partway. I remembered the nurses said it was easier for him to breathe flat. It was still so hard to trust my ability to interpret the situation, to not make a mistake.
Still the moans. I'm sorry, I don't understand.
"I...WANNA...GET...OUT..."
Ready to quit, he said so, the morning before. But not really. Not so's he likes it. He knew he was losing, but he also knew WHAT he was losing.
He wanted to stay, he wanted to stand, he wanted to leave, he wanted to play.
With me.
And he pushed with all his might against that half-elevated mattress and tried to rise up out of that bed, tried to use those legs that hadn't supported him in two chaotic, physically devastating months of inertia. The effort and strain of the attempt was frightening, exhausting just to watch. I thought it would kill him on the spot. His shoulders never cleared the mattress.
One way or another, Gord - you're getting out of here.
And because I was scared, I lowered the bed again. He was so frustrated, so fed up.
When Nicole came back she shot right to his side and heard his plea to stand, and though she called the nurse to make it official that he was not going to be able to stand up, she cranked him back up into seating position, and he stayed there for the rest of my three-hour visit.
We flanked him, me on his left Nicole on his right, held his hands. I kissed his big bald head.
Soon Murphy came by, and we ate Cobs danish and talked about the history of the Suck Trumpets and thought back to Symptom Hall and playing "I'm Your Discovery" with the Yawns in the basement, and we jammed on melodica and Monotribe, then on kalimba and mbira. And then the family came, and Murphy and I went on our way.
Before I left I went over to Gord's good hand and held it. He was conked out, as he had been for most of the time since our talk.
You know it all Gord. You know how I feel. You know how great you are. Do what you gotta do. I love you Gord.
I held his hand to my cheek, and I kissed it.
Murphy drove me to Heather's and we had a great talk. Heather and I hugged and cried together and hung out.
Later I went to the Banks Christmas party and had to answer honestly when asked how I was. I told Joan that I was supposed to be visiting him with Ailsa on Thursday, if he lasted that long; it was hard to know what to hope for...and suddenly I was crying again, and I cried and cried in the middle of the party while Joan held me.
At 2:45 this afternoon, Monday January 16 2012, Gord High died, of GVHD (graft versus host disease), at Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto.
We were actually distant cousins - tied together in Niagara's mess of United Empire Loyalist roots. But that meant less than what we were to each other in the present - whatever present we were presently in.
Twenty-five years ago, Gord literally taught me how to rock and roll; and I'm still learning. In the last two years, I feel like Gord has been teaching me how to live. I won't forget.
We belong on the same plane of existence, wandering in and out of each others lives. Him all process and me all product, me gazing longingly outwards and him containing multitudes, each understanding and needing the other.
I love him so much. And he loves me back.
It's not fair.