Before I left my mother's womb I knew the sound of beautiful strings. They lulled me into a quiet and peaceful sleep. There was nothing that was soothing and calming not even the heart beat of my mother before birth. It was the quietness and stillness of the gentle strings in that crowded spot before I breathed my first breath of air. My father spent endless hours playing his guitar and I knew it and recognized it before my time of birth. Intimate times with my father were guitar sessions when I would set at his feet and hear him play for hours on end. I never cared about anything more than the sounds of those acoustic strings from my father's finger tips. It calmed my spirit like no other.
My parents divorced when I was 4 and I was also divorced from the guitar. My memories of my father were all about music. Years passed and I guess his love for those strings faded and became less important in the world around him. I searched for it in music and found that still calming effect and would play my radio at night and fall into a deep and peaceful sleep. I missed my daddy. Always searching for that guitar to return it was a sadness and a incomplete feeling that I was longing for. As my younger brothers grew up they loved to sing and would boldly express there beautiful voices but they didn't have the strings to support them. Alas...........my father was moved and encouraged my brothers to play the guitar so there was accompaniment for there voices.
The older and shaky hands now were not as steady as before but I still loved to here my father play and every chance I could get I would say play something for me Daddy. He would kindly smile and say well I'm really no good at it anymore Beck. He was very proud of my brothers although they weren't lovers of there guitars, it was the voices and the music. My dad had encouraged them to play. They did this to please my father and he was very proud of them falling in line but they didn't have the love of those strings the way that he had.
Years later my son brought an old cheap guitar into the house and he never really tried to play it but it rested in the closet and that is where it stayed. I tried to encourage him to play but it just wasn't a part of him. My kids moved off and grew up and the guitar stayed in the closet. HHHMMMM I would think should I and I would shrug it off and say to myself I could never learn to play this. I have no one to teach me and I don't know music. It is just not possible. My daddy was always my music man. Music that we shared before I breathed my first breathe. It just lived inside of me. Of course I had always supported my brothers to play but never thought it would be me.
It happened as a miracle and through a very painful experience but also a healing time and a mourning time. I got a call on the 18th of August of 2006. It was my sister calling me to tell me she was at the hospital and that my father had been diagnosed with Lung Cancer and it was in operable. My dad was only 59, to young to leave me now. I wasn't prepared for it but I guess that God helped me prepare for it. I got off of the phone and realized my guitar man that I looked at in all the music I loved was fading away and I would never hear his music again. I had a hard time accepting that my dad gave up his music because music was his first love.
Never could a woman fulfill that or could anything he had ever encountered in his life replace it. He could hear the music and play it. He did not learn music. I set in my chair and I guess I was shocked because he was my hero and my long lonesome guitar player. A few weeks had passed and I opened the Closet Door and there was that old out of tune guitar. I knew my dad did not have long. I picked it up and held it ever since. My fingers bled on those worn strings and my fingers cramped as I reached across the fret board to make a chord.
My Dad told the boys as I stood idle watching him teach them, I could here him say boys all you need to learn is 3 basic chords and you can play loads of material. So I learned to finger 20 or 30 chords. Then 50 and before long I was playing those tunes from my childhood and preparing myself for my father's death. You see my father never taught me to play the guitar. God did. God knew that if he could teach and guide me with that guitar that my father would always be with me. Also he showed me a thing or two about his love for me.
As my dad grew sicker I would take my guitar and want to play for him but he was to sick most of the time. During his sleeping periods I would go off in the other room and play and one day I was thinking of him and played Wind beneath my Wings. I was playing my heart out and did not see the shallow and thin shadow standing behind me. I could feel the presence of someone standing behind me watching and as I gazed over my shoulder it was my long lost guitar player with tears strolling down his cheeks. No one saw the tears but me. He was proud and knew I was playing for him just as I had set below him when I was a child. I carry the guitar man with me now every where I go. He is in my spirit and will never ever leave me again.
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