February 22 - Helpless

Today's song is really describing the feeling I have had being with Chris in the hospital through this battle with breast cancer. It is not my fight directly - as a matter of fact, I don't feel like I am fighting at all - but I do feel like I am supporting the troops as much as I can. The bottom line is that no matter what I do here, there are things that are completely out of my control - so all I can do is control my reactions to them. I was lucky enough not to be there when she first had breast cancer, so I wasn't there for her near-death experience or hemorrhaging eyes. I am also blessed with many very positive experiences with hospitals, so for me a hospital is a place where you go to get better and not a place where you go to die - or at least almost die.

I also have a great deal of trust in science, and by extension in doctors and nurses and that they know what they are doing. It doesn't mean that I'm not critical, but it does mean that I operate with the assumption that they are trying to do what's best for their patients, which in turn means that they are trying to help Chris as best as they can. That also means that when doctors tell us that they are confident things are going well, I focus on that. It doesn't mean that I don't hear the other side, but I don't believe that anyone is helped by always assuming and expecting the worst.

However, even with all this trust in medicine and science, I still worry. And the sinking feeling you get when you are told that your loved one has to go in for a second pretty major surgery in just as many days is captured with perfection by today's song. It is breathtakingly beautiful in all its deceptive simplicity, because while the chord progression is simple, the song has so many layers to it that make it worth hearing again and again and again.

Back in 1970, archetypical Californian David Crosby from The Byrds, Texan Stephen Stills of Buffalo Springfield fame, and Englishman Graham Nash from The Hollies had perfected three part harmonies in the supergroup Crosby, Stills, and Nash. When Canadian Neil Young, who had played with Stills in Buffalo Springfield, teamed up with them for their second album, the name was changed to Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, and the album was called Deja Vu. The album is spectacular, but in my eyes, nothing beats this little song written by a Canadian from North Ontario, mr. Neil Young. Please enjoy, here is CSNY with Helpless!