Dad's Guitar: Learning The Stories Of A Man's Life Though His Music

Each person has a lifetime of stories to share. As ainto a stunning instrument. My father loved that guitar
child of divorce, I got to know my father when Ilike a soulmate and played it for hours at a time.
was 16. That was the summer he shared his love ofThen for a long time his heart wasn't in it and the
guitar and music with me: I heard the stories of hisguitar gathered the dust of loneliness.
wonderful, musical life.Cancer came into his life and the guitar was
I spent many evenings listening to dad play, thesummned to duty again, it was his life jacket. He
music he wrote and the pieces that had inspired him,played his music on good days and the guitar waited
stories of his musical past spinning in the air likewhen he was too weak. Last September it was
sparks from a campfire. We talked music theory likedisplayed beside a wreath of flowers and my father's
it was tabloid gossip and we made music togetherashes. It returned to its case and wasn't played since.
until the sun was long past set and our fingers wereAs I grieve from losing my father, I am consoled by
worn.There were some stories I never learned and Ithe stories other people have about my father. My
suppose he always thought there'd be time tomother recently shared her story from a time when
eventually share all the details that made his past up.she and he were first married and before I was born.
I sometimes wonder what interested him in guitarShe described how he sat cross-legged and hunched
and how old he was when he first strummed theover in their tiny apartment, leaning into his guitar and
strings: E A D G B E. I suppose he learned it from hisstrumming softly. Mom says he always had a distant
mother when he could barely speak, as she herselflook of concentration as he played his way through a
played. There are old recordings with the childrensong, like a scientist bent over a microscope working
strumming vaguely familiar German folk songs, singingthings out. I know that face.
words I don't understand.That is how I remember him best, playing his music.
I frequently imagine my teenaged father at the endLosing my father made me aware that every family
of a line, flanked by his six younger siblings lined uphas a thousand stories bursting to shared. It was
tallest to smallest, all of them dressed in clothestime for me to share my father's stories with my
made from drapes. I've added the dramatic climaxfour-year-old son, Ryan. Time for him to understand
where he decided to leave the family production,our love for music and why I wept at night.
making a symbollic and shocking leap from "TheIt was like the guitar was waiting for me this whole
Sound of Music" to "A Hard Day's Night."time, hoping I would pluck its heavy strings and pull
Dad did share the story of the time in his life whenout the notes that were my father's life. I picked it
he discovered the raw sounds of the Beatles andup and held it close; so much heavier than my hollow
Led Zeppelin in the 60's and abandoned his classicallittle violin. Large fingerprints on the varnish that won't
studies. Around that time he left home and met mybe imprinted ever again, a scent of cigarette smoke
mother. He grew his hair out and learned the chordsin the leather strap. I fumbled over a few chords I
to songs that made his parents' toes curl. He mustlearned from watching him play so many summers
have mellowed with age, because I "met him" againago.
he had returned to his classical roots.Ryan watched mesmerized, a familiar intensity filled
Dad always had a quirky dream to play an electrichis eyes and he understood what I was sharing with
guitar with a large classical width neck, a Frankensteinhim. His sweet, compassionate voice swept away my
of an instrument that would merge his love ofpain as he asked gently "can I play Grandpa's guitar,
classical and classic rock. So for two years he and Iplease?
watched a luthier turn a shapeless chunk of wood