Maybe my mother was right. She wouldn’t let me go to the funeral of a classmate when I was in Grade 3 or 4 because she thought I was too ‘high strung,’ that I would be too bothered afterward.

We came home from visiting with Vincent at his Christmas party last night and, as usual after seeing him, I was devastated. It is so painful to see the life he is living, with no way out of it but death. I do not know how he copes — I guess he has no choice — and I do not know what I can do to help him. Perhaps that is what bothers me so much: that I can’t fix this.

The hospital setting, his room — without a home-made quilt, without a personal picture on the wall; loving music, one of his few pleasures, but having a CD player that is unreliable and not being able to afford a new one; no way of changing his circumstances.

I came home, and thought “The only thing that will help Vincent survive is his art,” even if he has to start drawing with his mouth because his one good arm isn’t that good anymore, is very weak.

Does anyone but the nurses, when putting him to bed or bathing him, even touch him? I asked for, and gave, a hug and kiss before we left. I wanted to gather him up and bring him home and make everything all right. But it is so not all right.

My lover went to sleep, and I put on the first CD in our 200-CD machine. It was one of Joni Mitchell’s earliest, and I went to bed with it playing, followed by several of her other CDs in the order in which they were released. She astounds me ... the beauty and power of her voice, her guitar- and piano-playing, the words so alive, the poetry of song, and her delivery — each song a polished gem in a string of jewels — that I decided if I had to choose one CD to be stranded on a desert island with, it would definitely be Joni’s Court and Spark. Talk about perfection. Of all the music I love, and there is plenty ... this I could not do without.