Jesus, My Brother...

Jesus, my brother... swore he was best friends with you...

said you reached out when no other gave a damn or would do...

for that I'm eternally grateful, though we may never meet...

Jesus, my brother and I walked down different streets...

 

raised in the Mother Church... washed in the blood of the lamb...

baptized, and conformed; both condemned and damned...

he to his darkness, broken by shafts of light...

me to my weakness, the temptations of night...

 

 

the ten years between us, seemed a century...

a decade of distance, a broken rosary...

he had his 'voices', me;  vices and song...

we each made or choices... believed the other wrong.

 

 

Jesus, my brother; believed in you most...

knew he was getting closer, as he gave up the ghost...

I watched him as he died...so surreal and serene

played guitar at his bedside, wondering what it all means...

 

 

Jesus, my brother, swore he was best friends with you...

said you reaches out when n ther, gave a damn or would do...

for that I'm eternally grateful... though we may never meet...

Jesus, my brother and I marched to different... beatitudes.

 

...well... I think that is the whole lyric to that one... I haven't sung it in a very long time... I did in fact play guitar while my brother Peter William Emmett O'Toole lay dying in a bed at St. Michael's in Toronto. ...ten years between us... we shared a second floor room in a war time house... Peter had a paper route and a record collection with a portable player like many of us would recall. In the days before headphones he would play albums at low volume and pace while I slept in the other bunk uncle Pat had made for us. If one puts any stock in sleep learning, I sure got an education in popular music... the Everly Bothers, Buck Owens, Ricky Nelson, Roy Orbison (and on and on...)... in lter years I would make the trek to the city to see him in his nursing home and play for him. He could tell me the date that each of those old songs appeared on the charts, and it was as close as we ever got, I guess. Pete had been a heavy smoker (three large packs a day) nd was dying of congestive heart failure when he came upon a dog eared bible on a bench in Trinity Bellwoods Park while living in a rooming house n Toronto's seedy Parkdale area. He opened it to the passage that read: " Ask of me and ye shall receive,.." ...he cast his tired eyes heavenward and petitioned the Lrd to save him from his deadly addiction. He never smoked again. Believe what one will, but that bought me an extra decade to get to know my troubled brother... and for that, Jesus... I am eternally grateful. lov to all, d.

 

 

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