“To live in the hearts of those we leave behind is not to die.” –Thomas Campbell
Last night a person who seems to be becoming a friend came over after work. She is also a budding guitarist, and while she has a nice guitar, all of her friends who’ve played it have complained to her that the action is too high, and she isn’t playing it much. That not one of them could help her out with that surprises me; they must’ve been men. Anyway, when she told me, I told her she probably needed to adjust the neck, and I could show her how to do it herself. It’s a putzy business, but easy enough to do if you’ve got the tools.
So we ate pizza and talked and then went to mess with guitars, talking and playing our songs to each other, and since I’m little further along the guitar path than she is, I shared with her the minimal knowledge I’ve managed to glean to this point when the moment called for it.
As I did, I realized how many of the things I was saying had come to me through A, my guitar guru on top of everything else he was to me. He taught me so much, and now I was teaching it to someone else. I really think he’d be pleased. Is pleased. And the truth of the matter is, I’m pleased, too. It is comforting for me to have so much of him still in play in my everyday, and whether anyone else knows it or not, I know he’s still very much a force in this world, if only through those of us whose lives he blessed, (though I am convinced that he is more active than that in my life; I see it all the time.) When I share what he taught me, his hand is still in this world, however unseen.
Right after he died, I wasn’t sure I could ever pick up a guitar again. Those 6 strings are the warp to his weft, inextricably intertwined in my heart and mind. And that caused me a lot of pain at first, and some from time to time after. But now I’m glad for it. The fact that I have these guitars, that I play at all is only because of him, and every time I play, I’m playing for him. I’m as sure as I can be that he hears me.
And as we sat eating cake after the guitar stuff was done, and my friend said again how much she wanted to be able to play “O Holy Night” by Christmas, I looked at her and said with complete conviction, “You will play it.” He said those same words to me, and they are inscribed on my guitar case. They meant the world to me then, and they still do.
What a man… I have written 230 single-spaced pages of blog about him since he left, and another 2000 journal pages, not to mention the reams of paper that would be required to print all of our e-mails and conversations. And yet I am quite certain I will never have words enough to do him justice. I’m okay, this week, and getting okayer bit by bit. But holy hell do I miss him.
And the more you write, the more you think of to write. For me, it is as if I want to get every single bit of him down on paper. But I know I never can. I’ll be thinking of you this weekend.