Why Not Me?
I have been in bands for years. Music is my life. I love it. Even now, I have band equipment set up in my guest room. Might as well. Sure don’t have any guests. I have lots of great memories, playing with different bands and seeing different places. Met several of the old greats in my time: Johnny Cash, Willie, Conway Twitty just to name a few. Women flocked around me.
Yeah, those memories are great but they don’t do me a lot of good now. I have two grown sons who live four states over and want nothing to do with me. It’s my fault. All I wanted was the music and the beer.
I am an alcoholic. Even now, I drink. My buddies and I get together and play music and once in a blue moon one of them crashes on the couch. The rest, well, they make it home somehow. Not my problem.
Till Scotty had his stroke. Now, being as I’m in my 60s, my friends having a stroke shouldn’t be a surprise. Only Scotty isn’t in his 60s. Scotty is only 34. He likes that old time country and loves to play with us. He parties hard, drinking and probably indulging in a couple of other recreational drugs but still, his stroke hit me hard. He is 34 and I am 64. The doctors say he will never recover. He had a bad one.
I see him at the hospital and he can’t talk, he can’t hardly move, he just lies there and tries to smile, saying something indecipherable. He’s being moved to a rehab center soon and we hear he will be moved to a long term facility because his mother can’t take care of him at her age.
I am 64 and my sons won’t see me because I chose alcohol over them and their mothers years ago. I should be grateful they at least know each other since they came from different mothers. Still, I look around my small house and wonder what I really have? A rented place and friends who come to have a place to play music and get drunk.
Why not me? Scotty has his whole life ahead of him. Or he did.
I realize I was luckier than Scotty. That could just as easily been me which would not have been a surprise at my age. Scotty has a mother who can’t take care of him. We both made bad choices, Scotty and I. But maybe, just maybe, miracles can happen. I put my beer down and pick up the phone to make a call.
“Son, it’s Dad. How are you?”
