To See You Through

One of These Days We’ll Both Be Fine To See You Through: On Grief and The Grateful Dead

Yesterday Dave and I drove back from Toronto to London where my mother is in the hospital awaiting a spot in a long-term care home. She has Alzheimer’s and can no longer live on her own.

Although it’s an emotional time, I often choose to feel no emotion so I can just get through it all—looking for appropriate homes, making decisions with my sister about her care, visiting her in the hospital with no end in sight.

As soon as any feelings come up, I shove them back down to keep my emotional state—dead inside. Although that may sound horrible, the dead inside state allows me to function.

My mother could be waiting in the hospital upwards of 70 days; that is, if she is lucky. It could, and likely will be, longer. She’s already been in the hospital a month and a half.

Our health care system is falling apart. To add insult to injury, she is now expected to pay the hospital $65 a day for the duration of her stay.

A private long-term care facility would cost $8000 to $10 000 a month which none of us can afford, so we’re waiting until a bed is available in one of the five homes we’ve chosen.

As we head into London, Dave puts on the song “Ripple” by the Grateful Dead, a song I’ve heard a thousand times, and if I’m being completely honest, it’s a song I’ve mostly been indifferent to.

I’ve never been a huge Grateful Dead fan. The mythology that surrounded the band always annoyed me, and I considered them the epitome of Baby Boomer music (even though I grew up listening to and liking a lot of other Baby Boomer music). I don’t know why I had a hate on for the Grateful Dead—generational resentment is fickle I guess.

But this time, Dave causally mentions that the song was written when one of the band members was driving back and forth on the highway to visit his father who was dying of cancer.

“It’s a good highway song,” Dave says.

We are quiet in the car listening to “Ripple,” and I’m thinking of the new-to-me context when I suddenly wail and burst into tears.

“This song is sad!” I weep angrily and then laugh.

Taken aback by my outburst, Dave also laughs and then I alternate between laughing and crying while the song continues to play.

“Why did I cry like that?” I ask when the song ends.

“You needed to,” he says.

I looked it up, and Dave got the story and the songs a little mixed up.

“Box of Rain” was actually written by Phil Lesh and Robert Hunter when Lesh’s father was dying, which as it turns out is also a pretty fucking sad song too.

What do you want me to do
To do for you, to see you through?
A box of rain will ease the pain
And love will see you through

I guess I am now a fan.

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