23 September 2014
September Days All Roll Together
Hiya Dad,
Well these
days in September so far have all rolled together, a mish-mash of flooring and
work at Tower Court, of getting ready for the garage sale there last Saturday
(Mom made over $300 and Charlotte made about $50 from her toys, bike, and rice
krispies/drinks treat table). Today is
the first day of Fall, it is Cris' birthday, and it is three months since you
passed away. We're to go tonight to
dinner with Aly, and then a concert at Logan Street Sanctuary. I've been okay there, you know ~
"my" sanctuary for music and peace, but those first few concerts
after you died were really tough ~ especially that first one, when the band
played "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" ~ god how I cried into Cris'
chest. I'm getting better there, no more tears there so far. Tonight, I expect something will make me
cry. I'm prepared, I guess, to ride the
rollercoaster that is today.
I wish you
were here, Dad, so I could drive you down 9th Street to see my banner hanging
on the corner of 9th and Conner, right by the Copper Still; I still can't quite
believe it was selected to part of the Banner Art Gallery downtown. They chose "When Roses Bloom", Dad,
and it looks so bright and colorful, so happy.
I wish you were here so that I could tell you all about my
Reclaimed River Salvage Sculpture project ~ how you would love the fact that I
was chosen by Nickel Plate Arts to be one of three commissioned artists tasked
with creating art from "river salvage" ~ trash pulled from the river
during this year's White River Clean Up day. How you would love the fact that the other two
artists are well-known metal sculptors and I am not ~ you would love that they
chose me to be the "odd" artist!
I wish you were here so that I could tell you about the day I went to
"pick out" my trashy salvage pieces ~ it was amazing to see all the
crap people have thrown into the river.
It was exciting to try to find things that I can "use" in my
piece, but it was also sad, because all that crap should not be in a river! I
wish you were here so that I could show you my "work in progress" ~
so far, my "salvage" pieces are cleaned and painted ~ my construction
phase begins tomorrow.
Dad,
remember when I wrote my "goodbye" to Johnny Cash when he died, and
remember how I ended up with handwritten notes from his four daughters? Well, there's an addition to that story, and
I am just going to out the whole thing in here for you to read at your leisure
~ hey, share it with Johnny Cash, I know you see him all the time now, so let
him know about all of this, okay? I'll write you again after Friday, when I'm
see Rosanne Cash in concert!
Love,
Alys
Saying Goodbye to Johnny Cash
12 September 2003
Today,
Johnny Cash crossed Jordan;
I am sure June was waiting with outstretched arms to greet him. In my mind’s eye, I see them walking together,
pain-free and eternally at peace, in a sunny meadow with flowers swaying in a
soft breeze and butterflies flittering around them. Johnny hums.
I
know that Johnny Cash is now blessed to be out of pain and back with June. Yet I am so bereft that he is no longer in
this world – is it crazy to feel so lonesome for someone that I never even
knew? Maybe. Still, I have loved him
forever.
I
was born in 1963 – I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t listening to Johnny
Cash. He was always there. I have had a lung disease all my life, and it
went undiagnosed for many years when I was little. There wasn’t much Doctors could do – shots of
penicillin and daily antibiotics waged war with weekly bouts of pneumonia. For many years my health was worse than
precarious, and everyone believed I would die. I don’t remember much about those years. I have two younger brothers – I don’t really
remember when they were born – they just seemed to be around after a while. I remember being sick, I remember Doctors, and
I remember Johnny Cash.
My
parents had the Folsom Prison and San Quentin albums, and once they realized
that he was my favorite, they bought many of his other albums for me. I loved the albums Ring of Fire, Blue Train –
so many favorites. My dad ran speakers back to my bedroom, where I was confined
by illness for weeks at a time, and we had a record player that you could stack
records on – 5 or 6 at a time. My mom
was a wonder at knowing exactly when to turn the stack over. She knew I was listening.
When
Johnny Cash sang The Big Battle,
it was as if he was singing for me. I
knew it was a story-song about the Civil War, but it was also about the
universal sadness and pain and death and sorrow that war brings, and I had my
own war with my disease and lived with thoughts about those dark things every
second. The song was also about
everlasting perseverance – “I’m dropping the gun and the saber, and ready for
battle am I!” I would think, “if that
boy can keep going, so can I.”
I
have had a life-long love for Ireland
because of Johnny Cash. When Johnny Cash
sang about the Forty Shades of Green, I felt peaceful and comforted; I could
visualize the places in Ireland
that he described and they became my vision of Heaven. His voice sounded both melancholic and joyful;
poignant memories of a far away land seemed so real in his voice. Sure, it was “just a song,” but to me, he was
singing about Heaven. Johnny Cash could
inspire and evoke more emotion than any other singer I have ever heard.
I
walk the Line and The Ring of Fire have always been my favorites. The world loves these songs; everyone
understands them. I Walk the Line taught
me about the integrity two people take on when they commit to each other for
life. The Ring of Fire is simply the
best love song ever. “I fell for you
like a child” says it all for me. Children
love so deeply and so instantly. As a
child, listening to that powerful voice sing of those powerful emotions, I
yearned to feel that way some day. I
wanted to live, to grow up, and find my own Ring of Fire. (I did – he took me to see Johnny Cash – a
lifelong dream – October
18th 1995 at the Vogue in Indianapolis. We
stood in the first row, and I cried a lot, and at the end, as he shook hands
from the stage, Johnny Cash took my hand and held it and smiled at me.) Ring of Fire was the first song my daughter
ever sang – I will never forget her little voice coming from the back seat of
the car, singing along to an old tape I had made from my records. She wasn’t even two years old. My son Johnny’s favorite song is Blue Train. Johnny Cash will be ever-special to my own
children – they will carry on my love for him.
So
many Johnny Cash memories for me – I could write an essay about every song he
sang and what each meant to me. Every
song really did mean something special to me. His voice alone – its strength – seemed to
empower me sometimes. I am forty years
old this year – an age many experts believed I would never reach. I have two wonderful children – many experts
believed I never could have children. I
look back deep into my life and I see Johnny Cash was always there, always a
part of my life. I took his records with
me when I went off to college; I have them still. When I married my own Darling Companion, I
heard the Ring of Fire in my head as I walked to meet him at the altar. My old home-made tapes are stacked on a shelf;
their CD versions are in my car at all times. For me, Johnny Cash is everywhere.
As I
try to understand that my Johnny Cash is gone from this world, I keep thinking
about my most consistent and REAL memories from my early years, from about 5 to
10 years old, when I was so very sick and had high fevers and
hallucinations. Many "scenes" in my mind from childhood are
fuzzy-edged and some are merely photographs from my parents' albums. I see the photographs and think -- "Oh my
god THAT'S my memory -- it isn't a memory really but it is just a photo that I
have seen all my life and I think it is a memory!" Then I realize that my real memories are few
and far between. The most dominant real
memories I have are of lying in bed, sick, with fevers that caused me to feel
like the bed was swaying and monster-faces were zooming at me. My mom would put on a stack of Johnny Cash
records (which I knew by heart) and I would try so hard to focus on the ballads
-- the words, the stories. I would try
to "see" the stories instead of the monster-faces. I would close my eyes and listen to his voice
and just focus on that wonderful sound -- so rich and emotional. People say that he often sang of somewhat dark
things ("dark as a dungeon, damp as the dew, danger is doubled, pleasures
are few, where the rain never falls, the sun never shines, it's dark as the
dungeon way down in the mine . . .") and I always believed he knew how
awful I sometimes felt, with the darkness and pain that was my prison. That darkness included an overwhelming fear of
dying in my sleep.
There
were many times that I felt like I was slipping away -- not in a conscious
"oh I am dying now" kind of way, but just a knowing that I was simply
fading out. Fevers, exhaustion, the pain
of every breath -- it was so hard and I was so little! I remember many many times as a song would end
-- the pauses in the records between songs seemed SO LONG to me -- and I would
feel like I was just slipping away and I remember thinking "The Long
Black Veil is next" or "Give My Love To Rose is coming" or
"now it is Remember the Alamo" and I would think "oh I want to
hear THAT one." And I would hang
on. I would just hang on for the next
song. I loved his voice so much. I was just a little kid – it wasn't until
years and years later that I realized that I truly credit Johnny Cash with
keeping me alive many times when it just would have been so much easier to let
go.
So
the world mourns a legend, his children mourn their father, his friends
and colleagues mourn a great talent that they all respected -- and I mourn
because of what he meant to me when I was little and sick and alone and scared
in my bed. He was my comfort. I hope he heard his beloved mother calling
to him -- "come on home now, son, it's suppertime." As hard as it is so say goodbye, I am glad
that for Johnny Cash, there is Peace in the Valley. And I know that, just like he promised me all
those years ago, there will be peace in the valley for me, someday.
~ Alys Caviness-Gober
12
September 2003
Addendum 16 September 2014
Eleven
years have passed. Right after I wrote
that "Goodbye", I posted it on
a Johnny Cash forum website, where the
world was mourning his passing. I did
not realize at the time that Bill Miller was running the website, nor did I
realize that Kathy Cash frequently communicated with fans there. Bill read it and shared it with Kathy, who
shared it with her sisters Rosanne, Cindy, and Tara. Kathy wrote to me on the website, thanking me
for sharing my thoughts about her father.
Can you imagine that? What a
kindness on her part, to be so gracious.
I felt compelled to send her and her sisters each one of my "Forty
Shades of Green" necklaces ~ simple strung necklaces made with polished emerald
chips, cultured pearls, and Swarovski crystals.
Tara Cash is an incredible jewelry designer, so my necklaces seemed
almost silly to send. To my amazement,
each one of the Cash daughters sent me a handwritten and heartfelt "thank
you" note, and Kathy wore her necklace during an interview on the Larry
King Show. When Rosanne's thank you note
arrived, I was absolutely dumbfounded ~ I have been a fan of hers since her
first album came out; "Seven Year Ache" stands the test of time, "September When It Comes" broke my
heart, and "The River And The Thread" album is perfection. Anyway, after I received her note, in a
moment of true intrusion into her life, I felt compelled to send her the
"lyrics" to a song I wrote "for" her ~ ridiculous of me; she
is an incredible songwriter and I can't write music, I know nothing about music
(yet I hear songs in my head and I write lyrics/poetry for them). I probably should not have crossed that line
~ the one that marks a "crazy fan" ~ but, I sent the lyrics. (She was
kind enough to not just mark it
"return to sender".) Honestly,
the grace of those incredible women, as they grieved the loss of their father,
was overwhelming to me ~ to have shared their father so publicly their whole
lives, then to share his loss so publicly, and yet behave so graciously and
compassionately to someone like me, is astonishing. These women, who have carved out their own
destinies in the shadow of their famous father ~ how I admire them.
Time
passed. Shortly after The Johnny Cash
Museum opened in Nashville, my family stopped there on the way home from a rare
family vacation, a trip to New Orleans to celebrate several "big"
family events: my 50 birthday, my daughter's graduation from college, my son's
20 birthday ~ all rolled into one family extravaganza. My husband and I had gone to New Orleans
twice before ~ as always, my husband gives me the world: "Big River"
came alive for me ~ as a child, listening to that song, I never thought I would
ever see the Mississippi or New Orleans, but my husband took me there. En route, we stopped in Jackson ~ yes, the
"we got married in a fever" Jackson! As a child suffering fevers, I had not understood
that song ~ I thought they were crazy to get married when they had fevers,
because fevers were awful: they made me dizzy and nauseous, with uncontrollable
tremors. Obviously, as a kid I did not
yet understand the kind of fever the song references. Anyway, our family trip to New Orleans allowed
us to revisit some of our favorite southern haunts with our kids, and add The
Johnny Cash Museum to our list of "must stop" places. On a beautiful
sunny day, my husband bought me the one souvenir I truly wanted: Tara Cash's
"Cry Cry Cry" pendant. I wear
it every day.
Time
passed. Three months ago, on 17 June 2014,
my father suffered a massive stroke. On
June 20th, my sweet mother and I spent my 51st birthday at his hospital
bedside. On June 23rd, after a week on
life support, my father left this world. I can't talk too much about his passing. It hurts too much, and it is my grief ~
possessively, I mean. "Mine".
Each of us ~ my mother, my siblings, my children, my nieces and nephews ~ possess our own
personal grief. Mine is inextricably
mixed up with music ~ as always, the soundtrack of my life includes Johnny
Cash. I have over 400 "favorite"
songs on a USB drive, to which I listen
in my car ~ these days, when "I Still Miss Someone" and
"Suppertime" come on, I have to pull over; I can't NOT cry. When Rosanne Cash's "September When It
Comes" plays, I can't even move ~ the duet with her father continues to
break my heart. Again, I think of the
grace of the Cash girls, remembering how kind they were to ME after they lost
their father. I do not have to publicly
share the loss of my father with anyone; I cannot imagine the pain they endure
having to share their loss and their grief with Johnny Cash's adoring
public. To this day, I feel badly that I
"invaded" their grief by sharing my personal "Goodbye" ~
yet, I have to trust that they truly understand and appreciate what their
father's music means to me.
Not
long ago, I found out Rosanne Cash's "The River And The Thread" tour
includes a concert at Clowes Hall in Indianapolis, and I bought tickets. My best friend Lorraine, my husband Cris, my
daughter Aly and her boyfriend Evan, and I will see Rosanne Cash perform! My son Johnny isn't going with us, because a
month ago, he left for Germany, for his senior year of college, attending
Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster.
The recent "loss" of my son ~ although temporary ~ has mixed
in with the recent loss of my father. It
has been a tough year.
Yesterday, I found out that my friend Lorraine has
been working some magic behind my back ~ she emailed somebody who contacted
somebody who made some arrangements, and the upshot is that I will be taken
backstage after the concert and I will meet Rosanne Cash. I will
MEET Rosanne Cash.
Unbelievable. My friend is
worried that I might be disappointed if Rosanne does not "remember"
all of this "history", all of "my Johnny Cash story," the
necklaces, the thank you notes, everything.
I told her, no I will not be disappointed. I know who Rosanne Cash is in my life; I do
not need her to remember me. I hope I
can meet her with some measure of grace and poise; I hope to be able to say
thank you. I hope to be able to find the
words to thank her for sharing both her music and her father with me. His music is a gift that has lifted me, carried
me, sustained me throughout my lifetime, and her music continues that Cash
tradition in my life. The gift of Johnny
Cash is one over which she and her sisters had no control, yet they have given it with utter selflessness and beauty. I hope I can find the words to thank her.
