Hope Is Her Middle Name, Part III
Apocalypse Meow, Abigail's Journey
This year, Abigail Henderson (of Gaslights fame) was diagnosed with Stage III, Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC). On November 8 at Davey's Uptown and November 9 at recordBar, her family of friends, including scores of artists and businesses, are throwing a benefit, Apocalypse Meow, to help her meet the medical expenses.
Some of us are blessed to have a few friends stand with us in our darkest hours. When you read Abigail's chronicle of this journey, you will understand why and how an entire community will stand beside her with hope.
Continued from PART ONE and PART TWO
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Gratitude & Thespians
The air has changed. It happens in the
My mother was an actress. It is a difficult life full of struggle. And perhaps that is why I've always felt a certain kinship with my late night theatrical wing eaters. My people chose music. They chose theater. In an older world, the work we do would matter just as much as the work the accountants do, or the IT people, or the money movers, or the big contractors. But this is not
So every Wednesday my theater kids come in and get shit hammered. They eat their wings and drink their vodka-tonic-double-tall, whiskey-press-captain's-punch-extra-pineapple, miller-pitcher, drrty-shirley-appletini, jaegerbomb-slut-shot-rum-and-cokes-after-11PM-please-Miss-Abigails. I, too, have a bar I walk into where I don't even have to speak and there is a Beam and diet waiting for me. I understand the importance of the joint you go to when the world ends, when the world begins, when you nailed it, when you failed. These places are important. I do what I can for them. I like them. And they are kind. But what they did for me last Wednesday was amazing.
I have, for many years, been the cavalry director, the cat wrangler, the sword wielder. It is strange watching the advance from the other side. From this vantage point, please know I am learning something I may have never really known before. Gratitude is not something you have for something or someone, but something you are shown you have and often painfully. You all left on Wednesday night, and when I was good and safe and alone I walked out into the rain and cried. And they were good tears. Full circle tears.
There are other people too, whispering away in secret meetings they don't think I know about. My Apocalypse Meow contingent. So much whirls in my head. I think, "This is community. This is taking care of your own. If no one else will do it, it is our responsibility."
I remember sitting in the room with the nurse having the initial biopsy for this beast done, unsure, unknowing, scared shitless of the huge black shadow on the X-ray machine, and she asked me, "Why didn't you come in sooner?" and I said to her, "Debt kills people too." I don't want the super-bestest-cutting-edge-elephant-placenta-magic health care; I just want some health care. I want someone who loves medicine like I love music to lay hands on me and tell me, "This is how we're going to beat this fucker" and I want to be able to pay for it and get on with my life. I don't want it for free, I want it for possible.
I am worth saving even though I don't make $100,000 a year, and it took me awhile to come to that conclusion. The painters and the dancers and the actors and the writers are just as worthy of being well and safe as the lawyers and the doctors and the used car dealers. "What matters most," Bukowski said, "Is how well you walk through fire." Fire ain't no thing for some of us. We've learned how to live on a quarter. But it’s a hell of a lot easier to fight through with an army. So gratitude...gratitude deep enough to change the way the world looks now. Eight letters are not enough, but thank you.
XOX
Related Articles:
Read Past Articles · the Archives
Fun Thumbs
