When: Monday, Dec 9th 7:30PM ET

Where: https://youtube.com/live/L46pKTr1QLI?feature=share

Who gets 10%: Arlington Youth Counseling Center https://www.ayccma.org/ Guess what they do?

http://paypal.me/vancevancevance or https://venmo.com/vancevancevance or VanceFunder P.O. Box 17, Arlington, MA 02476

GIGS OF NOTE:
12/13 NORTH ADAMS, MA - Railway Concert Series at Studio 9 https://studio9porches.com/performance/railway-concerts-presents-vance-gilbert/
12/14 WHITE PLAINS, NY - Walkabout Coffeehouse - https://walkaboutchorus.org/coffeehouse-2024-2025/#December
1/11 *CAMBRIDGE, MA - CLUB PASSIM 2 SHOWS* https://www.passim.org/live-music/events/vance-gilbert/

*PRIVATE COACHING AVAILABLE - Contact me (vance@vancegilbert.com) for songwriting, performance, and voice coaching.*

**CUSTOM SONGS - Expensive, but sure, you want one about you or your family or something.**

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GROW UP

I wish I was more grown up about this. I guess it’s the tween the holidays time that makes it loom.

Your husband was a mentor, one of the original Old White Men. You came out of the 50’s as the archetypal housewife. He started to invite me by after our hobby events, both of you eventually extending that invitation to whenever I was on the road and passing by your house. I was to just call and drop in. There’d be times I’d just come sleep on the floor and hang with you both, of course our common interest making him the focal point of my admiration, time. But wonderful times. I saw great meals, fights, silence, love, I got advice. I got a nickname.

Then came the invites to family events. Your son, also a hobbyist with Pops and me, became my bestie-other-brother.
You were the family I chose.

Look at me and my adopted family. Being introduced with a twinkle as *that other son*. Then when me and my partner slept over multiple nights to help when Pops had a heart attack. Just being there. A few years later his son, my bestie, and I flanked him, one on each bedside hours before he died. I sang at the funeral. Me standing up in the middle of the church on prodding from the bestie during a break in the service and belting The King Of Rome, him squatting down in the pew in laughing tears making it look like I just decided to do it on my own. The honor. The family. Finishing a chapter. The family.

I remember one time coming past and just sitting with you. I don’t recall if you cooked or if I took you out, but we sat with the ever-present TV droning on in the background like some disinterested witness, and you confessing that if you ever saw a man again that it would not be one with a hobby. I got it, although it hurt to the core. My brain vacillated between the bootstraps mantra for you to be a modern woman and get interests, and full understanding of the conditioning of 50’s era living of being there for the children and the man.

With him gone there was less reason to visit or call, but I did when I could.
Even with the linchpin gone, you were the family I chose.

I was invited to the oldest grandchild’s wedding. The two following kid’s celebration, no. I sent registry gifts anyway, almost like some elderly cry for remembrance. They all but shrugged a hi when they did see me at a christening that my bestie brother last-minute-whim-invited me to. I went from the Brown Son and brother to Daddy’s and Grandpa’s hobby friend guy. And now if I was to call or come by it would be such a surprise and a shock.

My blood family had gone to shite long ago with alcohol, schizophrenia, abuse, distance, homelessness, death.
You were the family I chose.

It just hurts. The distance. The knowing that I’m just someone on the periphery. Sure, people drift apart. I’m old now too. Still some may read this and just say make the call yourself and rekindle what you can. Sure. Your arm gets heavy and you can’t even dial. Your head lolls ever so slightly to one side. Your voice goes soundless in deep desire. And as if it was verification of existence, as if it was proof of love, there are times you’d like to be drawn back in from the edges, hand over hand.

I wish I was more grown up about this.