Farewell, Dad

My dad wrote a song for me called “Sing For You.” For so long, I thought nothing more of it than it’s him making up for the voice I lack, but now I realize you don’t need a loud or pretty voice to sing for others.

Today marks a year since his passing, and as I reflect on how I honor my dad’s memory, I realize he gave me something so much greater than a singing voice. People have always told me I am a “mini Brad.” I didn’t get it. I guess we favor each other in appearance, but like– SHOCKER! Most biological sons look somewhat like their dad, but there’s more to it.

I recently attended the Cure FA Soirée in Oklahoma City. The family who put on the event, the Gehrs, had two performers of their own. My friend Michael Gehr has FA, but his brother and mom don’t, and they were the ones performing. One thing that he said hit home for me: “the reason they’re performing is because I can’t.”

Michael is in a family of musicians but is not able to sing with the same quality due to the vocal symptoms of FA. I know I have written in the past about not feeling like I can fully take on my dad’s legacy because I can’t sing, play music or make art like he could. (I am still working on guitar, but it is a struggle. I won’t lie). My sister sings with my dad’s best friend, Billy, and it’s hard to accept the fact that I can’t do the same. But I have different abilities and a different purpose.

Michael, unable to contribute to the soirée musically, embraced his ability to impact others and instead used his voice to give a speech. He asked me to introduce him, and quite honestly, I was panicking a few hours before the event as for what to say. There’s no way around the fact that FA took his ability to be himself and perform, what can I say to change that? You can’t change it; you embrace it. What he did do is not only embrace his role by speaking instead of singing, he was largely responsible for the growth of the Soirée – getting 27 FA families at the event, in turn raising over $400K for FARA and further strengthening the community by planning a weekend of activities and meals for those FA families to interact and make connections. He got FAers from 11 different states gathered in the same place for one cause! In my introduction, I made sure to tell everyone I was responsible for making Alabama one of those states – without me, it’d just be 10. You welcome.

Jokes aside, I see that as Michael’s form of singing that weekend. No, it’s not literal singing, but like I said, when my dad said he’d sing for me he meant more than actual singing. It was his way of serving and caring for me. He’d be whatever I couldn’t be for myself. He’d sing: which could mean actual singing, but he also did it by staying a weekend in Birmingham with me so he could help me navigate the city and the stadium so I could cover Auburn’s Birmingham Bowl, dropping everything and driving to Auburn to pick me up when I was sick, lending me an arm to help me walk or get up the stairs, or even helping me retie my fishing line after I had to cut it for the third time after I got hung on a tree stump (I could go on forever).

Serving others is a trait that runs in my family altogether but that my dad passed on to me by teaching me to sing for others. He passed on to me a servant’s heart! I am still finding ways to use it, because with FA, there are many limitations to how I can serve effectively. I know writing is one, using the resources given to me to benefit others is another as well as loving and caring for others however necessary. Living with a disability has allowed me to build empathy for people who are suffering and taught me to advocate for others, even before I advocate for myself.

See, it truly is about your abilities and not disabilities or weaknesses. God made everyone to sing, but he hasn’t given everyone musical talent. The abilities you have always allow you to serve in the way God created you for, and the disabilities you have often times make that clearer.

At the end of “Sing For You,” he says one day he will sing WITH me. There will come a day when vocal limitations won’t be a factor – not for me, Michael or anyone else like us. My voice will rise above a crowd and will be clear as day. The weight of the world won’t hold me down forever, but for now, I am learning to sing in the way my dad taught me.