“Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here…” – Tool

This past week some of my family came to visit. My younger sister and her son. His girlfriend came along to help with the ten hour drive north from Cincinnati. I was glad to meet her, and I was excited to see them. I hadn’t seen her in the two years since my brother’s memorial service. My nephew had brought his three young girls up to visit us last summer. They were “t’weens” then, so who knows when I might see them again. Teenagers have their own busy agendas and are probably less likely to indulge the boring elderly aunt.

This visit had a different purpose, actually. They drove a rented truck up to deliver the granite headstones my sister had made for my parent’s and my brother’s gravesites. Cemeteries are governed by strict laws now that require professional installation and maintenance. They came to oversee that.

We all went out to eat near my home. My son wore his Tool sweatshirt, the one that features the colorful Alex Grey illustration featured on the Lateralus album. I bought him that sweatshirt for Christmas a few years ago, so he put it on without thinking about it – which immediately raised questions. And so began a short conversation about the band Tool.

My son introduced me to Tool years ago. Since my days at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit I have been a heavy metal fan, thank you Black Sabbath. I took my son and friends to their first rock concert as teens. We went to see Metallica. It was great, even if I was way older than the rest of the audience. I cannot tell you how grateful I am for my son and how he enriches my life every day in a million ways. I’m trying to pay attention, because WHO GETS TO BE THIS BLESSED?!

If I’m honest I had mixed feelings about seeing my sister. I love her dearly. We have little in common. Our values are so different. We have a third sister in this area; she and I have no contact. I knew that the two of them were going to meet also. Family, at least mine, is always a mixed bag of emotions. You never know how it’s going to go.

However, I do not have mixed feelings about Tool. I am a die-hard fan for life. I have referred to them as the Mozarts of their generation. Their music is a complex, brilliant treatise on the human condition. As usual…artists are the keepers of the truth, after all. The alchemists who turn our fodder into gold. And now I am also a fan of Band of Echoes. How is this song the perfect metaphor for my family relationships…how is my heart to survive these divisions?

But as it turned out we had a wonderful visit with my family. Politics and religion never entered into the conversation. We are aging. Our younger brother died of a heart attack two years ago. Our time here is fleeting. My sister and I both know that every visit is a privilege and could certainly be our last. We also know that our sons – our beautiful genius sons, will love each other long after we are gone. “Good Lord willin’ and the crick don’t rise,” as my southern grandmother Mimi would have said.

So as a continuance of our conversation I searched for an acoustic version of a favorite Tool song to share with my sister. I knew she wouldn’t listen to the heavy metal original. We will see how this goes…