Already Gone  by Marian Wilson          pobdjw@nidlink.com                   

A guitar lick starts the Eagles’ tune and sells the song for me. I can see the fingers of a young man as they fly up and down the neck of his guitar. I have to buy the album. I have to play it over and over, just to hear that lick.

We were on a retreat with my church youth group. I always felt like a tag along, a few years too young, mostly there because my sister wanted me to go. I stayed busy in the kitchen, spooning out large quantities of burnt pasta or washing dishes. I’d speak when I was spoken to or when an activity demanded it.

For hours we sat and listened for as long as he’d play, and he seemed to love to play. In between songs he’d joke with his friends in short, tentative conversations. He took our requests, even if it meant playing the same favorite tunes again and again.

The lyrics didn’t matter to me that day. I barely noticed them. But that lick, those notes and the hands that flew along the guitar, I couldn’t forget.

Over the next few years, the youth group dispersed as college, military commitments or relationships interfered. I avoided anything church-related for years. Then one day I went. It was a church in the same county where some of the youth group members had lived. As I sat in the silence, I saw faces across the wooden pews that looked familiar. One stood up and spoke. He talked about a friend, a guitar player, who brought happiness to others. He had just committed suicide.

There’s a quote I’ve read on greeting cards: "Those who bring joy into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves." I wish the words were true. A song, just a few notes, the way the fingers flew up and down the guitar neck, it was enough to give me goose bumps. But what did it bring the guitarist?

"So oftentimes it happens that we live our lives in chains, and we never even know we have the key," the Eagles’ lyrics say.

I struggle with darkness, always searching for an audience to tell me I’m okay. I replay the message from the musician, my lost Brother. We were so focused on the fingers and the instrument, we didn’t hear his words. "I’m already gone," he sang, the one who seemed to have it all. And he never even knew he had the key.  END   Marian Wilson          pobdjw@nidlink.com      

I am a writer and registered nurse living in North Idaho. My stories, poetry and essays can be found in several places including Potpourri, L'Intrigue, the Dead Mule, RN, American Journal of Nursing and the Spokesman-Review.