Yeah, he really is that nice.

It's been a tough few weeks. I found out that my liver is failing. I pretty much feel like shit. All. The. Time. 

And my wife, who has known me for over three decades did the absolute worst thing she could have ever done and the most loving thing that she has ever done at the same time. 

Last Saturday, I was blearily sitting through some cooking show when she came in the living room and put the remote on mute. 

"I have something important to tell you," she said. I looked up, tired, only half interested. She says things like this ALL THE TIME. And then she usually says, "Are you aware that I adore you?" 

It is really, really sweet. But, as I wrote, she says this almost every day. So, I have grown immune. At first, it used to move me to tears. Now, it makes me smile. 

Except this time, she said something very different. 

"@LeeDeWyze is coming over tomorrow to give you a private concert. I invited Conrad, Kim, and your sister Carol."

I laughed, dudes. And I don't laugh much anymore. The look on her face went to scared. I realized that she was serious. So, I adjusted my face....to horrified. 

"TELL ME YOU ARE JOKING," I said. Her eyes filled with tears. I immediately felt contrite. This woman is a not only a saint, but she is my wait-on-me-hand-and-foot woman. She would do ANYTHING for me. 

Her voice went hushy. "I set it up over a month ago. When you were getting around better. I SWEAR that if I knew that you were going to be this sick, I would never have invited anyone over, not even Pete Buttegieg. Listen. I can call his manager, put the kibosh on this. I can call everyone else and tell them that you are too sick...." 

But, by this time the facts were finally ping ponging around my chemo fogged brain. 

Lee DeWyze? Lee DeWyze? Are you fucking KIDDING me? 

Here's the deal. Lee DeWyze is not really a household name. Yet. But, he is in our house. Lee DeWyze is one of my favorite medications for cancer. His music soothes me in a way that is hard to explain. I have loved his music since I heard him on American Idol. (He won the damn show, btw, in 2009....when I was a regular person with a job that I adored and no cancer sluicing around my liver, spine, and sternum....) I used to listen to his music as I took my evening walks or sat outside on warm evenings. 

After he won Idol, I stayed with him. His music was too hypnotic to let go. Plus, I could feel him trying to writhe his way away from a show that brought him fame, screaming young girl fans, and a push into a pop culture that he neither wanted nor sought. I listened as he put out more and more music that sounded exactly like the person I had heard behind those Shania Twain lyrics that he had been forced to sing in order to win. It was a sound that I couldn't put my finger on and that is precisely why I loved it so much. I would be listening to a tune of his and suddenly his lyrics or his music would take a sharp left turn and instead of standing in that meadow, we would be in a forest. 

I enjoyed that ride. 

And then, I got cancer. Laying in a hospital bed with my breasts suddenly gone, I reached for my tunes. And among Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Simon and Garfunkel, Elton John, Nirvana, Brandi Carlisle, Kathleen Edwards, and Elvis Costello....there was Lee. Since then, I have never really stopped battling cancer. The breast cancer became leukemia. The leukemia became metastatic breast cancer in my sternum, spine, and liver. 

I've been on one sort of chemo or another (and a truly hideous 8 month stint on arsenic...yes....arsenic) every since then. And my music has stayed the same. What I like is what I like. I like America, but I don't LOVE all their music. I sink into Ventura Highway like a bed with a really good mattress. I like John Denver, but only Rocky Mountain High. I am all about how the music makes me feel. 

I wasn't thrilled about seeing Lee DeWyze because I already had his music. Plus, I was embarrassed about how messy our home has become since I've been sick. T is a slob. I am a neat freak. We had just started the task of pulling up some of our carpeting to reveal our oak floors when I got sick. We stopped, worried that all the dust would make me sicker. Plus, we had no idea how long I had.  T, working on her doctorate now, uses every table available in our house to write. 

I had no eyelashes and a comb over that resembled Bernie Sanders. The chemo I was on gave me bright red cheeks that made me look like a demented Mrs. Santa Claus. The steroids had puffed me out. One of the most delightful side effects of the chemo was sudden diarrhea that seemed to rear its ugly head (pun intended) at the most inopportune times.

I felt as though....here was this exquisite music man and we were asking him to play his hypnotic music in a sad house where a really sick woman lived with her devoted spouse. 

T and I talked it through, as we do everything. She finally hit at the root of it. 

"You worry too much about the frosting. I don't think this guy cares too much about outer appearance. Listen to his music. He dives down deep." 

In the end, as you see from the photo...not only did Lee come visit and play a private concert for me, but he was every bit the gentleman that I had hoped he would be. There was something that I wanted to tell him that I was too shy to put into words: His music has saved my life more than once. I doubt if he knows that. He is an extremely humble man. He wasn't into name dropping his celebrity friends or acting as if he was doing me a death bed favor. 

Here is how Lee saves me. He does it in a way that Kurt Cobain does, but in a different way. With Kurt....I slide into one of his songs, let's say....Smells Like Teen Spirit. We all know that one. At the beginning of the song, I am in a room full of dancing, sweaty people. He is standing a few feet away from me, motioning with his finger to follow him. I am reluctant. 

Kurt is a very bad boy. I know this. I also know that I have always had a place in my heart for a pirate. That is when I notice that this bad boy sports angel wings. I follow....slowly. Soon, we are surrounded by dancers and everyone is bouncing like Tigger. Harmless? I'm not sure. Kurt takes my hand and draws me deeper into the crowd. The music gets tighter, the strings are hard. I can feel all that pent up pain inside me that usually sits in my stomach curling up towards my throat. I try to pull back, but Kurt is having none of it. The music is now chaotic and wild. 

"With the lights out, it's less dangerous
Here we are now, entertain us
I feel stupid and contagious......"

The pain is in my throat now and I am screaming. But, it is all okay. Because Kurt is right there with me and he won't let go of my hand and he's screaming, too. The pain dissipates. 

With Lee? We are walking in the woods and I am being a complainer. Everything hurts. I am nauseated from chemo. The bones in my legs ache like a mother fucker. I can't move my right shoulder. My right shoulder feels as if it might just fall clean off of me. My fingers feel as if each one is being stabbed with a knitting needle. 

"I can't stand this pain anymore. I really can't." I am feeling scared. Alone. Stuck. Why did I think I could get through this? This hurts. God, it hurts so much. 

Lee holds out a hand and I take it....with a lot of grumping. We are walking and he is pointing out different things....jeans with grass stains, river runs, pack your things, time won't slow down and wait for you, feel the earth beneath my feet again, the moon goes down and the morning comes....

I am diverted. Lost in the gravelly voice, poignant lyrics and music that is so beautiful that all the faeries come out to see what that incredible noise is. The pain is less. I feel myself falling asleep and it is all good because, like Kurt....he isn't letting go of my hand. I am safe. 

Just in a different way. 

I think that Kurt understood the kind of pain that comes from the terror of mental illness, being diagnosed with a terminal disease, or seeing something awful happen right in front of you. Lee gets the softer pain, the kind that comes creeping in at 3 a.m. and won't leave, laughing softly, unkindly at your predicament. 

Both get me over the rough current. I never told Lee that. There was no time and I felt shy in his presence because he was exactly as I hoped he would be. A soft spoken gentleman who could be sly if the occasion called for it. 

He sang most of my favorite songs. (I only missed The Breakdown.) He played his newest song for me. You will love it. Promise. He was funny and intelligent.

And I doubt if he noticed that our dining room wallpaper looks like The Olive Garden or that T's writing paraphernalia was everywhere. He participated in a rousing political discussion that made me like him even more. 

And he gave me a parting gift: something called a capo. He knew that I loved his song, Castles. He told me he had used this when he recorded it. 

Dudes, I had no idea what it was. It kind of looked like something that you use to keep a bag closed. T had to explain it to me after he left. I held it in my hand and gently squeezed it open and shut, open and shut. Later that night, I awakened at 2 a.m. and the pain was sinking into my shins. I turned my iPod to shuffle and held the capo in my hand and squeezed it over and over while his voice came softly into my ears telling me about 

From your castle in the trees hear you call to me I
remember
Oh the things we miss
With grass stains on our shins.......

His voice sang me back to sleep.