Today I was informed that my cousin Russel ended his suffering. He was battling cancer of the esophagus for the past year, and is finally at peace.
Whatever higher power is up there is not a stranger to irony, this all happened in the days before I'm performing again in Carnegie Hall (this time with Cleveland Symphony). Usually I'd be freaking out about how I have to make time for the slightly Paganistic ritual that comes with a Sicilian funeral. Most other times it's someone I hardly know someone that doesn't break my heart upon hearing that they had died.
But Russel was such a wonderful person, of that entire family, that includes my direct blood, he was amongst the five I could count that were bona fide good people. His smile could lighten up a room, his sense of humor could make anybody laugh and he was the type of person that hugging him just made you so happy.
If I could, I'd tell choir to go to Hell and be with my family.
Part of me knows that being on that stage would have made him so proud, it might be the best way to remember him. The last time he heard me sing, at his brother in laws funeral, there were tears in his eyes when he said "I hope to hear you sing in happier times"
I said before that the higher powers aren't strangers to irony.... the symphony we're performing is Mahler's Second Symphony. It's other name is The Resurrection Symphony. It's originally in German, but the words (as well as the music) are so moving and powerful, they make you believe that when you finally reach the end, it's what you hear.
Rise again, yea, thou shalt rise again,
My dust, after short rest.
Immortal life!
He who called thee will grant thee
To bloom again thou sown.
The Lord of Harvest goes
And gathers in, like sheaves,
Us who died.
Oh believe, my heart, oh believe:
Nothing is lost with thee.
Thine is what thou hast desired,
What thou has loved, what thou hast fought for!
Oh believe! Thou were not born in vain!
Hast not lived in vain, suffered in vain!
What has come into being must perish.
What perished must rise again.
Cease from trembling!
Prepare thyself to live!
Oh Pain, thou piercer of all things,
From thee I have been wrested!
Oh Death, thou masterer of all things,
Now art thou mastered!
With wings which I have won
In love's fierce striving,
I shall soar upward
To the light to which no eye has soared.
With wings I have won,
I shall soar upwards,
I shall die to live
Rise again, yea, thou will rise again,
My heart, in the twinkling of an eye!
What thou hast fought for
Shall lead thee to God!
This one's for you, Russel. You've got the best seats in the house...
sick
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tarletonsqrter's journal
Freaked the FUCK OUT!!!
excited
My baby uncle's getting MARRIED?!!??!!
busy