I just re-strung my dad’s guitar. It’s been one of my annual resolutions for a few years now. Well, 8, to be exact. He died 9 years ago this week.
Is it sentimental to want to keep old guitar strings, just because my dad played those same strings in the last few weeks of his life? Yeah, probably. More than any other memory I treasure of my dad is the one where he is sitting beside me, with this guitar, his thick fingers playing impossible chords, singing in his deep, rich voice, while I struggle to keep up. I never felt like his equal, even at my best.
The old, rusty strings are gone, in the trash. I wrap on six shiny new Gibson steels, tune it by ear, enjoying the way new strings vibrate lightly on my fingers. I’m envisioning his fingers moving up and down the frets, where my fingers are trying to fly like his once did. I’m only doing impressions. I may never keep up with that image. It’s nice, though, to try.
This guitar feels like coming home, on a break from school, driving the 6 hours from Gainesville to Pensacola, Florida, walking in the front door to see my dad, rum and coke melting, cigarette burning to ash, playing Johnny Cash or Willie Nelson or some other song I used to think I was too cool for. Dad would sometimes have a cold beer waiting for me, my guitar nearby and in tune. He’d been waiting for me. Waiting for me to accompany him.
I may not have felt able to measure up, but I know that HE thought I was more than good enough. And now there are two little girls, two amazing grandchildren who never got to meet their grandfather, and they are looking up at me with shiny faces, trying to sing “Moonshadow” with me, forgetting the words, grinning and overflowing with silliness, their fingers just itching to strum these strings.