TAKING TIME OFF...FOR LIFE!

“Electric word life , that means forever - and that’s a mighty long time.  But I’m here to tell you..there’s something else..."  Prince Rogers Nelson (June 7, 1958 – April 21, 2016) 

A BABY!  That’s right I’m taking time off for “life,” not as in forever, but as in a baby boy, whom I’ll be bringing into this world come September.

As many of you know, over the past 5 years I’ve been forced to cancel a lot of shows due to a series off losses that began years ago with my sister Donna and subsequently back to back deaths of my brother Don, followed by my father, followed by my brother Dan and just last month, my beloved mother.  So here I am just losing a mother while becoming one.  So deeply strange and beautiful.

I’m as shocked as probably some of you are.  By now, I sort of figured I’d live a life without children and was feeling ok with that.  Yet,as death came knocking again too soon for another dear loved one, life too, was fighting to prevail.  To be honest, my first thought was “what awful timing” until my dear Italian friend and agent Luisa Parelli so beautifully wrote to me,  “You could do nothing better than life to battle death, and having a kid is simply finding one of the reasons we come to this world which is not so clear often!!!!!”  (Thanks for that Luisa).

That said, I’m absolutely terrified and now even more ready to come see so many of my dear friends and homes all over the world one more time before “the end of the world as I know it!”  So, as I list the last shows of the year below, please consider coming to bless this new little life that’s tagging along in my belly, and to celebrate ALL LIFE, past, present and future together in our Rock and Roll Church of Love.

Fear not, I plan to spend the most likely sleepless, downtime this autumn and winter making a new body of music that’s been brewing in me all year.  Then, I plan to bring this wee one all over the world (within healthy reason of course) to see the many beautiful places and meet the many incredible people I’ve been so very fortunate to have encountered.  

Until then, I’ll look forward to seeing you all this June, July and August.  My dear friend and clothing designer, Gayatri Jolly is making my big-belly shirts right now, while still devoting her time to the women in the slums of India teaching them to sew and be self-sufficient.

(What a Goddess!)

Thank you all for allowing me to share yet another of life’s twists & turns through sadness and joy with you.

I look forward to seeing you soon starting in the USA next weekend and then back to Europe starting with a “home” I haven’t been to in a while, which was my very first foreign country to ever visit and will now officially be the first foreign country for my baby boy, ITALY!!!  

So here’s where to find me, Y’all…..I sure hope you will.  

Love, Dana

BAREFOOT AND PREGNANT TOUR 2016

(click links for tickets)

MAY 2016

05-22-16    Chesapeake Bay Blues Festival - Annapolis, MD USA 1:25pm

JUNE 2016

06-11-16    The Levoy Theater  - Millville, NJ USA with Devon Allman!  8:00pm 

06-12-16    B.B. King’s  - New York, NY USA 8:00pm 

06-16-16    Mexicali Live - Teaneck, NJ  USA with Peter Diamond!  8:00pm 

06-24-16    Piazza Matteotti - Torrita di Siena, Italy 10:00pm 

06-25-16    Bergamo Italy - Time TBA

06-26-16    Sconfinart Music - Suzzara Mantova, Italy 10:00pm

06-27-16    New Orleans Meets Zofingen Festival - Zofingen, Switzerland 5:00pm  

06-28-16    Z7 Konzertfabrik  - Pratteln, Switzerland 8:00pm

JULY 2016

07-02-16    La Nuit du Blues de Cabanes - Les Arènes Municipales de Cabanes, France 10:30pm

07-04-16    Grosseto Music Festival - Grosseto, Italy 9:30pm

07-09-16    Bossa Nova Blues & Rock Festival - Ekenäs, Finland 8:00pm

07-14-16    Callahan’s Music Hall - Auburn Hills, MI USA  7:30pm

07-15-16    Bluesfest Windsor  - Windsor, ON Canada  11:25pm

07-16-16    Peter’s Players  - Gravenhurst, ON Canada  8:00pm 

AUGUST 2016

08-13-16   Ram’s Head - Annapolis, MD USA 1:15pm

08-13-16   Sellersville Theater - Sellersville, PA USA 9:00pm 

08-14-16   Heritage Music BluesFest - Wheeling, WV USA Time TBA

Never Buy Green Bananas: A Reflection of Grief and Gratitude

First, I want to thank all of you for the incredibly inspiring, loving and comforting notes and posts with your condolences.  I wanted to wait to post again until I’d read every last one of them.  What struck me most is how many of you have also been down the road of such loss and grief.  It was so connective and healing to read of your experiences and I'm beyond grateful to you all for sharing.  There’s a Buddhist meditation called, “Taking and Giving,” where we take the pain we are experiencing and we imagine the countless other beings going through a similar pain and situation, thereby taking on their suffering, and imagining that we are emitting back waves of love and compassion to them.  It’s so powerful to connect in this way, much the same as the posts from those of you who had gone through the loss of a mother. I was able to focus on love and compassion for us all rather than the grief of just my own loss.  That is what comforts me to sleep every night.

Today is my mother’s birthday and I was supposed to be in Florida celebrating her life with family.  Instead, I flew down weeks ago last minute and spent the last 11 days of her life next to her in the intensive care unit.  We still shared stories, meals, tears and laughter.  However, I never guessed “this was it."  We never do, for ourselves or our loved ones.  One of the things she said to me in the hospital laughing was, "Never buy green bananas.”

I knew exactly what she meant, yet I was still determined to throw her that birthday party, determined to get her home, where she was so determined to be.  Her sheer will had her up and walking to show the doctors she was ready, just hours before she left us.

I often say on stage that home is where the heart truly is. By that, I mean it’s about bringing our heart to every person, place and situation we encounter.  Well, the days following my mom’s passing we spent cleaning out her home, the home she raised her six children in. The home she was so determined to get back to. The home that had, stashed in every drawer and closet, every card her children ever sent or made, every school art project, every award.  Seeing it so empty without a visible trace of those years certainly took a huge piece of my heart, that will remain there frozen in a time of the past, before life’s tragedies stepped in claiming her eldest daughter, her two eldest sons and the only love of her life for 60 years, my father.  The home that will someday have the life of another family and their story imprinting itself upon those walls.

Now my mother’s home is in my heart forever.  On some level, I feel that she’s able to be with me even more than her physical restrictions would ever allow these past few years.  I try to take comfort in that.  In fact, when I finally came home after the longest few weeks of my life, I stepped into my NYC apt and gave her a tour, even officially introducing her to my kitties whom she always loved hearing about and seeing in the pictures I shared.  (Of course they all just looked at me puzzled, meowing for their tin of Fancy Feast to be opened.)

To sum it all up, my mother was by far the most selfless person I’ve ever known.  Sometimes to a fault, but never selfishly selfless, just selfless.  I will be forever grateful to her for the the endless memories of late night talks, Scrabble games, movie dates, roller skating dates, baking lessons, patching my clothes, making ridiculous punk rock outfits for me, all the creative made-up children’s stories, (which she later wrote down and I just found) and of course, her unconditional love and support.  The kind only a mother can really give.

My mother had nothing “valuable” per se in the house, so my brothers and I each took keepsakes.  For me, it was her teenage diary, love letters to my father, photos of her youth and this wacky rocking chair that she rocked all of her six children in, with me being the last.  :-)  I also kept her wedding band, which she gave to me in the hospital as her fingers began to swell with fluid.  I immediately put it on the chain next to the heart she had given me for my birthday this year.  Now, a symbol to me that our hearts are locked together in all eternity for countless lifetimes to come.  

I thank you all for allowing me to share this unbelievable life journey with you and for sharingyours with me.  

While I’ve lately felt it seems impossible to ever get on stage again, I also know that this is who I am and what I do, and exactly what my mother would expect of me.  She so loved hearing my stories of travel throughout the world and even met some of you who made a pilgrimage to meet her in person, (from as far away as Germany) and those of you who became pen pals.  It was such an honor to share this part of my life with her.  
She was proud of me and all of you are a huge part of my mother’s pride.  What a gift you are.

So today, I still grieve, but I also feel so much gratitude.  I will look forward to resuming my show commitments starting in late May, after some much needed quiet time.  I will look forward to connecting our hearts ever more deeply as I see you and bring my mother to finally meet you.

Of course, we never really know who of us will actually be here by then or even for another day, so let’s be sure to remember that with everyone we encounter, especially our loved ones.  

And by the way, I've never had the patience to buy green bananas anyway.  ;-)

With My Most Committed and Connected Heart of Love,

Dana

Taking My Chances In The Wild West!

 

In my home country, I'm often asked, "Why do you tour more in Europe than you do in The United States?"  The simple answer is because Europe sort of 'found and embraced' me first, and has since kept calling on me, year after year, a lot of times offering tour dates a year in advance!  That's humbling to me and a real honor and privilege in this biz! 

The European audience took a chance on me, allowing me to really "grow up" on stage in front of them. With each growing audience, I feel I've grown a little more as an artist and as a human being.  I still most certainly have a long way to go, but that's become the truly meaningful part of this road life.  People of Europe, I remain eternally grateful to you for your undying love and support.  I will be back soon enough with a new album and a whole new story to share! Stay tuned! 

Now it's time for me to take a chance here in my own back yard per se and I sure hope I can count on all of you here at home to take a chance on me too!  

That's why, this winter and spring, I took a break from some of my favorite European people and places to take that leap back home again on the West Coast of the USA. 

It was almost exactly one year ago that I had the pleasure of playing Los Angeles for only the second time in my life, then I got to play in other great cities, such as, San Francisco, Seattle, Yakima, Portland and Tacoma for the very first time.  That tour happened just weeks after the shocking loss of my dear brother Daniel, which absolutely wrecked me.  

But the reception was such a wonderful, empowering surprise to me.  I figured that so many of you would have no idea who I was, and yet I was so delighted and surprised by how many of you actually DID!  I lit up when I saw so many of you singing along with my songs and even wearing my out-of-print t-shirts at each show!   

Be still a girl's happy, humbled heart!  What a way to heal. 

Now, here I go again on this still rocky road of unfamiliar terrain, believing with all my heart that I made the right call taking a chance on my own great country and coming back to you beautiful West Coast souls!

So here's where to find me and I look forward to rocking your soul and embracing you again, or meeting you for the first time!  

USA West Coast Tour – TICKETS FOR ALL SHOWS ON SALE NOW!

03-09-16 The Coach House - San Juan Capistrano, CA Doors 6pm / Show 8pm Tickets

03-10-16 Sainte Rocke - Hermosa Beach, CA Doors 6pm / Show 8pm Tickets

03-11-16 Biscuits and Blues  - San Francisco, CA Doors 9pm / Show 10pm Tickets

03-12-16 Biscuits and Blues - San Francisco, CA Doors 9pm / Show 10pm Tickets

03-13-16 Sutter Creek Theater - Sutter Creek, CA Doors 6pm / Show 7pm Tickets

03-15-16 Jazz Alley - Seattle, WA Doors 6pm / Show 7:30pm Tickets

03-16-16 Jazz Alley - Seattle, WA Doors 6pm / Show 7:30pm Tickets

03-17-16 The Birk - Birkenfeld, OR Doors 5pm / Show 7pm Tickets

03-19-16 Coeur d’Alene Blues Festival  - Coeur d’Alene, ID 4:30pm - 12am! Tickets  

There's no me without YOU! That means all of you! USA, Europe and the rest of you beautiful people in the rest of this beautiful world who I can't wait to meet! 

All My Love & Gratitude, 

Dana

Dana Fuchs "Broken Down" Tour Important Announcement!

I am so very sorry to say that I have to end the European tour early with the last show being on October 20.

As many of you know, my family and I have been through a lot of tragic loss very recently and now I need to take some time off to deal with some pressing matters of heart and health.  

Please know that it PAINS me to cancel.  I have pushed through each loss and continued touring each time, but this time I truly cannot.  I'm so sorry.

When the dates are rescheduled, you all will be the first to know.  Meanwhile, I do hope to see many of you on the tour now in Norway, Denmark, Switzerland and at my last two German shows (for a while.) 

Please join me on October 19th in Aschaffenburg, DE at Colos-Saal and October 20th in Bensheim, DE at Musiktheater Rex to continue to celebrate our very precious human lives together and end the year stompin' and sweating in our Church of Love and Music!

On what may seem to be a separate note, but I assure you is not, after I say a heartfelt thank you to all of you for getting me through such dark days and continuing to celebrate life with me these past few years, I also feel tremendously compelled to say thank you to author Katherine Boo, for her doctrine into a realm of human suffering I have been only loftily aware of, and for the most part shielded from, which is so starkly depicted in her beautiful and tragic book, "Behind The Beautiful Forevers".

I discovered this book 2 years ago thanks to a woman who reads this blog, in particular an entry I wrote about my week in Mumbai and my 5 days visiting the Annawadi Slum that Katherine Boo writes about.  A slum only minutes from my luxury hotel.  A hotel that so many of the slum dwellers only dream of being given, at best, the opportunity to fold napkins and steal garbage from the many dumpsters.  

The lessons from that trip were just a small whetting of my appetite to "know sufferings," yet I've still found myself feeling a seemingly fortunate sense of separation from what such a hell realm must really feel like.  

Katherine Boo so generously and dutifully covers this particular slum without even changing the names of her precious characters, like Asha, Adbul and Sunil, and I keep peeling back more layers of the indelible mark it has left on me and the ways in which it manifests that force me, at least for a fraction of a second, to recognize the preciousness of my own human life.  

Starting with the smallest things, like not wanting to just "toss" the extra condiments or utensils from my take out supper, because I know now that little Sunil, the 12 yr old malnourished orphan whose biggest hope is to grow a few inches taller and stay alive by scavenging this "trash" from treacherously death-defying and revolting places so he can sell it for maybe 50¢ a day to those only marginally more fortunate, would simply never have the luxury of such carelessness.  One person's trash is indeed another person's treasure.

I am now taking a series of flights and long drives on a tour that I've had to almost cut in half and I'm feeling the pressure of disappointed agents and promoters, the financial loss that impacts mostly me and my band and to all of you who have faithfully bought tickets and told your friends to come and planned for the dates!  I'm so sorry.  

All of this is reeling through my head as I sit stuffed in a tiny narrow coach class seat, poor me because I didn't get my upgrade, while under-appreciating the vegetarian pasta that I would normally call "pathetic" but now have the almost inconvenient awareness of how Sunil would likely give his life to have just one "rich person experience," as the slum kids call flying and this meal would be a FEAST for him and his entire family, so I stop my mind from going to this selfish luxury of dissatisfaction.  

Ok I know, we have all heard and rolled our eyes over the whole, "eat all of your dinner because children are starving in Africa" speech.  But the fact is, by now we all know that humans and animals ARE starving and suffering grave conditions everywhere. 

What if we stopped to contemplate this in a way that takes it from "an old cliche" that we've heard again and again and instead begin to check in with ourselves to see if it has really sufficiently moved our heart in a way that evokes and inspires change?  Small change, like asking the restaurant to hold the condiments and utensils.  Wasting less and appreciating more.  Patiently accepting life's "curve balls" knowing that for many of us, they are almost always "luxury problems."  

Can we make room in our hearts, not by dismissing our own suffering, but rather through our own suffering, can we contemplate ways to find empathy for everyone's suffering?

I can't help but wonder what impact this would have if we all just tried a tiny bit more to be conscious of that for all living beings.  

"Behind the Beautiful Forevers" keeps reminding me of just how much truth there is in the phrase, "a little goes a long way."

Anyway, as I am forced to cancel the last few weeks of this tour in order to be present for the "suffering" of others, my heart is moved with gratitude that I have the blessing of choice.

Lastly, I have released a new album.  Advance copies are available at my online store by clicking here.

The title says it all, "Broken Down". It is not only reflective of how the songs are recorded but also speaks to the heartache and perseverance of the last two decades of my music career. 

A career that thanks to you all, has steadily built over these recent years of touring non-stop and gives me a place to let it all out!  The album has been officially dedicated to my late family members and to all of you who celebrate life with me at every show.

Thank you all for not only being a part of my story but helping me to create it and for your unending love and support.  

I look forward to continuing to celebrate life, love, pain and joy with you.

Love,

Dana

I’M BROKEN DOWN & ABOUT TO EXPLODE! (Help me go out with a bang y’all!)

As another year slowly begins to wind down, I reflect on the lessons learned.  Loss of a father and another brother took me to a deeper place of reflection than I've ever ventured before.  It took me closer to the people I love most and closer to the friends I’ve made all over the world, in large part thanks to music.  Friends who've shared my tears night after night, show after show.  Words cannot express how fortunate I feel to have had this opportunity to share both the burden of grief and the joy of life with so many of you.  Our collective tears make an ocean of nectar which we can dive right into and explore, or upon which we can float peacefully, as we ride the waves both gentle and thrashing.  Thank you.

Now it’s time to go out in an achingly scorching blaze of fury and glory with a bang that’s been a brewin’ in me all year.  In other words, LET’S ROCK!  Here’s what’s going down...

For starts, I welcome to the band one of my first friends in NYC, the amazing Craig Dreyer on organ, piano and tenor sax. Craig is a NYC legend who has played with Greg Allman, Warren Haynes, Joan Osborne, Dispatch, to name just a few! 

Here’s what one critic wrote, "Craig Dreyer brings his heavy, blues-rock organ, barrelhouse piano and howling tenor sax to the Dana Fuchs Band's already big, powerful sound – and the result is pure excitement."  

After blowing away all of our audiences in the states since January of this year, I decided it was time to make it official and add Craig to the band.  I feel such a magical, musical and soulful connection with him, and on stage he makes me feel like a kid on playground again.   You’ll simply have to see for yourselves. 

And for some more exciting news… I’M BREAKING DOWN, after years of your requests, we are finally releasing our first acoustic CD, “Broken Down". Some of you have seen the acoustic show over the years and it’s YOU who planted this seed.

"Broken Down" is a compilation of stripped down versions of previously released and never before released songs.  It started with me and Jon Diamond going through our vast number of demos.  A couple of the tunes on "Broken Down" are the very first demo we created before going into the studio with the band.  For instance,   "Keepsake", "So Hard to Move", "Baby Loves The Life", "Misery", and others were demos of songs for producers and potential studio albums that still haven’t seen the light of day.  Plus, there is a healthy exploration of me creating new music with some different songwriting partners, such as, Ricky Ross (Deacon Blue), Jack O'Hara and Jon's brother, Pete Diamond.  We ice the cake with a cover version of "Ain't No Love In The Heart Of The City" made famous by Bobby Bland!  

While this body of material has been “in the can” I just wanted the time to be right to release it.

Dad, Don, Donna and Dan

As I was going through the songs I kept staring at this photo of my late father, my late sister Donna, my late brother Don and my late brother Dan.  It became so clear to me that this body of work truly represents the span of my music career which I only seriously began after the suicide of my big sister Donna.  

The title says it all,  "Broken Down".  It is not only reflective of how the songs are recorded but also speaks to the heartache and perseverance of the last two decades of my music career.  

A career that thanks to you all, has steadily built over these recent years of touring non-stop and gives me a place to let it all out! The album has been officially dedicated to my late family members and to all of you who celebrate life with me at every show.

That’s why, starting September 4th in Erfurt Germany, "Broken Down Acoustic Sessions" will be sold EXCLUSIVELY from the stage so  all of you, who essentially made this album with me, can have it first before the actual release date of November 9th.   

And if you can’t make a show, fear not, just check the Dana Fuchs Store for details on how to get it.

I hope you’ll come celebrate life with me one last time before the year ends.  

AS ALWAYS, I thank you with all my heart and soul and love and tears and joy!

Love, Dana

Click here to see where I’ll be and to get your tickets: TOUR DATES

SUMMER MADNESS!

It's gonna be a wild ride from the Royal Albert Hall to Rochester International Jazz Fest to Montreal Jazz Fest to Norway, Switzerland, France, USA and Ireland! 

Looking over all the upcoming summer tour dates and reflecting on this past winter/spring tour, I get a shocking reminder of how quickly life passes us by.  

It seems unfathomable that I was just wearing a winter coat and getting pummeled by snow in January and February during a Northeast tour! 

 Then without really coming up for air it was off to the Pacific Northwest and West Coast for most of March!

Now just barely back for a week from a gorgeous & rocking spring April/May run of Denmark, Norway, UK, France and Netherlands, here I am home for a minute making my "to do" list for the upcoming summer madness of bouncing back and forth between the two continents for festival season.

I am beyond excited to kick it all off next week in the UK at The Royal Albert Hall Lead Belly Fest for a very special show paying tribute to the legendary, blues, folk, soul artist Lead Belly.  I'll be sharing the stage with some pretty iconic artists that night including; Van Morrison, Eric Burdon and Paul Jones to name only a few! *Spoiler Alert*  I'll also be singing one of my favorite Led Zeppelin tunes, "Gallows Pole" (written of course by Lead Belly) with Ruf Records label mate, Laurence Jones.

Then it's back to the US and Canada where I'm thrilled to be playing festivals such as, Rochester International Jazz, (with Diana Krall, Jennifer Hudson, Gary Clark Junior and more,) Montreal Jazz Festival  (with Lucinda Williams, Beth Hart, Joss Stone and more) and then I'm finally returning to the amazing city of Pittsburgh for the Annual Pittsburgh Blues Festival (with Buddy Guy, Bobby Rush, Duke Robillard and more.)  

AND...AS IF ALL THAT WEREN'T ENOUGH...

Next, I'm returning to play at one of my favorite fests in the world, Notodden Blues Festival in Norway.  Robert Plant is headlining this year! Wow!

After that, it's back to one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, for the Magic Blues Festival in Vallemaggia, Switzerland, which is in the Italian part of the Swiss Alps where I swam in my very first waterfall! 

Summer Festival season will end for me in Ireland where I'll play for my very first time at The Harvest Time Blues Festival in Monaghan.  I'm a bit more than half Irish so I'm delighted to finally see my ancestor's gorgeous homeland!

Fall Tour Dates will be announced very soon and before we know it the season will change again.  But for now, I look forward to being in THIS moment with all of you. 

As always, thank you all for you continued support on every level.  I truly wouldn't exist without you.  

Much, Much, Love and Gratitude, Dana

TO HAVE LOVED AND LOST...AGAIN.

Most of us are quick to agree that it’s “better to have loved and lost then never have loved at all.” While I know deep down it’s got to be true, I can’t help but question that now after the loss of 3 siblings and my father - all far too young and unexpected.

Dad, Don, Donna and Dan

I know there are countless beings in this world suffering the grief of loss as I type, and that my situation is far from unique.  In fact, it’s just one of life’s promises - impermanence.  I try with each loss to find meaning and I keep coming back to the same answer,  this word that I have such resistance towards - impermanence.  I know that death is something none of us really want to think about, yet so many of us get these unfriendly reminders. Saturday, February 21st, 6 months to the day of my father’s death, my beloved brother Dan gave me another one of those reminders.

Dan was the 3rd child among 6;  Don, Donna, Dan, David, Doug, Dana.  Over the years I have loved joking about this “D.A.F.” initial phenomenon that my father (Donald Allen Fuchs) created and how my sweet, tiny, quiet mother (Sandra Marie Fuchs) accepted with good humor her exclusion from this club.   Now with my father, Don, Donna and Dan all gone, the rest of us are left behind swirling in the painful haze of losing most of our family and that joke feels so far away from passing my lips again.  Maybe in time…(Impermanence.)

After the loss of my father last July, Dan became my mother’s faithful companion and chauffeur (sharing that honor with my brother Doug, his 17 year business partner who lives a bit further away.) Dan living so close to my mother was such a healing factor for her as a recent widow.  In fact, Dan texted me Friday night at 7:20pm all excited about the meal he was planning to make for her on Saturday.  (Dan was a bonafide “foodie” and an absolute master on the grill.)   He had already bought the rump roast from Winn Dixie, which he planned to put in the slow cooker the very morning he left us.  

My mother went to wake him for their shopping date Saturday morning and he was gone.  Peacefully and quietly in his sleep.  Remarkably, late that Friday night before, Dan suddenly decided he wanted to go to my mother’s house to sleep.  He phoned her to make sure she was awake and they spent the evening watching Jimmy Fallon and talking until almost 2am.   Somehow, I think he knew where he wanted to just “let go." He knew where he was most safe and loved, in the house where he grew up, in his first childhood bedroom, with his mother just down the hall.

I have had the great good fortune of sharing a special bond with each of my siblings.  Dan was the only one of the six of us who didn’t play an instrument or sing - but he LOVED music.  He made me appreciate Metallica years ago and I got him absolutely hooked on Tom Waits.   He also convinced me to watch Dexter, Shameless and Californication and I turned him on to the poet and author, Charles Bukowski, which seemed to spark the writer in him that none of us knew.  Only a few years ago and totally out of the blue, Dan he emailed me his first short story, “Sunday Morning Paper."  It was Bukowski, Waits AND Dan all rolled into one!  I was blown away.  His sense of humor was so devastatingly and hysterically dark and his writing so authentic and raw.  Just like him.

While working long hours as a contractor, baking in the hot Florida sun to provide for his wife and 2 boys, Dan began to put himself through college online and recently got his bachelors degree in criminal psychology (boy did that influence his comedically dark writing!)  He was the only one of us all to actually finish school.  He was so proud of that.  As were the rest of us.  Dan and I loved talking politics and shared pretty much the same ideals (albeit he a little more radical with his conspiracy theories!) Of the six kids he and I were the tallest and by far the loudest!  Think “Foghorn Leghorn” and you get the idea of Dan.  ;-)  

Throughout most of our childhood, I only called him “Daniel-son” a play on "Daniel-san" from the film “Karate Kid.” As we got older, I affectionately shortened that to just “Son” which is the only name I called him for more than 20 years.  (Often greeting him singing “Son Son Son Here We Come” to that infectious Beatles melody.)  ;-)

Dan was an avid yankee fan and I had the great joy of being able to take him and his wife Patty to Yankee Stadium just a few years ago.  

Dan loved NYC and Mexico City, where his wife Patty is from and where they travelled together several times.   

Dan was my first real fan, coming to all of my local Holiday Inn shows on weekends where I played with my first professional band at 16 years old.  I was so grateful for his company because the band members and audience were all triple my age and none of my friends were old enough to get in!   He wasn’t so into the music but he had a crush on a gal who was coming around. ;-)  In fact,  it was one of those shows where Dan met the sister of his bride-to-be who shortly thereafter introduced him to Patty.   Once they decided (via a Spanish/English translator) to get married I nominated myself as the wedding translator since I was just beginning to learn Spanish.  I butchered the language but at least got some laughs and props for my inflection.  

Dan loved cooking and he loved good wine.  He loved being with family and commanding the room with his loud colorful stories.  He loved impersonating people and had mad talents in that department.  He loved life, even when it “sucked."

When his boys were younger Dan devoted his much limited time to voluntarily coaching their little league teams.  Before that he was part of Habitat for Humanity where he voluntarily helped build homes for the poor and needy.   Before that he was on the volunteer fire department.  Over the years, he rescued dogs and took his 4th stray (JoJo) in just months ago.  He had a big, generous heart and it just gave out on him. 

"JoJo"

Even in death his generosity carried on as within a day, my mother received a call from the Lyon’s Eye Institute, letting her know with gratitude that Dan’s corneas would be giving sight to a blind person.  Dan was an organ donor.  Of course.

54 people signed the guest book at Dan’s last minute service held in our mother’s home on Wednesday - and there were even more in attendance.  Some I knew, some I didn’t.  ALL had the same thing to say about how Dan:  “he was always there for them”.  So many stories of Dan helping people through hard times.  

Stories I never knew and he never bragged about.  

My last days of hanging out with Dan were over the Christmas holiday in Florida, cooking every night at my mom’s with the family, laughing, playing black jack and reminiscing.  FINALLY without tragedy being the all-too-frequent impetus that brought us together.   

That’s when we made a pact to get together more than just once or twice a year and not just for the ongoing tragedies that kept forcing us to drop our busy lives and show up for each other.  

However, time does not wait for us to make time for what really matters.  

So I ask myself,  if it really is better to have loved and lost - knowing we eventually have to lose those we love - then what do we want our memories with them to be?  Filled with regret for not seeing them more?  An argument we never settled?  “Sorry, I can’t talk now?”  Time doesn’t wait.  

Impermanence is the one true promise of this life.  And yes that means nothing stays, but fortunately this includes the pain and sorrow as well.

For all of you who have loved and lost - my heart aches and celebrates with you.  May we continue to celebrate this life right now in this very moment.  I think I’ve decided that death is actually a friend for reminding us to do so.

So goodbye - just for now,  “Daniel My Brother… You’ll be the clouds in my eyes.”  

See you in the next life, Brother...

I will see the rest of you on the road that keeps bringing us together.

Love,

Dana