Music in my ears.

Onward and upward


In the community of people who blog, which now totals about 50 million or so there is a blog , which I enjoy seeing , its author connected me with the link above.  I  knew what it would be before I opened it, just from the  words in the address

I recommend the blog  so :
.Read It

I will add the polite please to the Read It demand.  It is always good to see what others think on a variety of topics and  that blog is usually very thoughtful.

Just a little while ago I had commented on the death of David Bowie and how I would buy an album of a deceased musician after they pass just to see and remember if it was the way I thought it was. I suppose I will be doing the same with The Eagles or with Glenn Frey.  Read the words of passage on the Eagles Web Site commemorating his death, they are profoundly moving, yet strangely uplifting.

I , for some reason , was reminded of the song sung at many Catholic funerals. He will raise you up on Eagles wings.  I was struck by the beauty of the song on hearing it at my brother's funeral some years ago. On hearing it  I am always reminded of him.  Occasionally I hear it in church in a non funeral setting and again I am reminded of him.

Listen

As I get older I find myself listening more and more to music that I missed in my earlier life when working and chores and getting ahead were important.  It is something of a regret that I was not balanced in my approach.  So it is that when a musical talent passes that I want to know of their work and their art. Frequently I find that I had been deaf to them when I should have been in tune.  So now I try and make up the lost ground.

But the thing that jumped out for me was that Mr. Frey died of complications or acute ulcerative colitis , rheumatoid arthritis and pneumonia .  I belong to a social media group on Ulcerative Colitis for the informational value, of which there is much.  Needless to say the group was upset, because a high profile death reminds those who suffer of the potentials o the illness.  The potentials are in the worst form something not to be wished on anyone, yet it remains an invisible illness. Try to explain to someone that you are malnourished yet weigh 200 pounds and they think you make it up. Explain the waves of fatigue and they think you were up watching the late late show. You don't want to even mention incontinence of the bowel and internal bleeding. Mention pain and you are a  crybaby. But the group knows that these things lead to systemic failure, the kidneys go, the heart goes, the liver, the pancreas  in the acute phase it is not pleasant.  Small wonder why so many were upset and uptight.  Me, I have been pretty lucky and I hope my luck holds. I am getting along.  But I could tell that many were shaken by the idea that someone with success could die , for he presumably was capable of the best sort of care. Many on the group get no care at all as they have no insurance--yes even with Obamacare there is a gap, medicine is too expensive to be authorized.

  I myself have moved into the arthritis stage even as I maintain an uneasy truce with the flaring.  It is a daily struggle to maintain remission , there is no other way to describe it other than a struggle. Swallowing 20 pills a day every day can get old, knowledge that one slice of pizza per year is your limit or one cheeseburger  or one beer or one dish of ice cream can tempt even the most resolute.  So the expressions of dismay on the group site were predictable.  Fears come to the fore, the heightened risk of stroke and colon cancer, depression and anxiety or even relapse.  One person went so far as to ask that  there be no more mention of Mr. Frey's death.

For me, I will buy the album as is my practice and I will celebrate the fact that a man of talent and art did for a time live amongst us and by his art did raise us up.  I will also keep on praying for the cure.