I got the call late one evening, just a short conversation with my mother.  She was calm and composed as always, but her message hit me like a hammer.  "He's gone," she said.  "Your father passed away about an hour ago.  You better start this way."  I lived in the Oklahoma panhandle then, over 800 miles away from where my parents lived in Winona, Mississippi.  We drove all night to get there, but there was no way I'd sleep that day.

I went down to my dad's office in the back of the house and found his weekly newspaper article still in his old Underwood typewriter.  He had barely started it, so I sat down and finished it.  What I wrote that day was a personal tribute to my father . . . and a farewell to his readers from him.  I closed that article with these lines:

The leader of the band is tired and his eyes are growing old,
But his blood runs through my instrument and his song is in my soul.
My life has been a poor attempt to imitate the man,
I'm just a living legacy to the Leader of the Band.

When that article came out in the paper the next week, I got letters.  That article was my first published piece, and it started my writing career.  The words I closed with were written by Dan Fogelberg, a favorite performing artist with me, and came from a hit song he had out called Leader of the Band.  Dan died earlier this month of cancer, and when I read about it, I had to take a time out and go sit out back for a few minutes.

I didn't know Dan Fogelberg, of course, but news of his passing saddened me because I felt like I knew him.  As a matter of fact, I felt close to him in a strange way without knowing a thing about him.  I pride myself in reading faces, especially eyes, and the guy had a great face with eyes that told you all you needed to know . . . at least from a distance.  He had a good look about him, and my guess is that he was a great guy. 

And so I looked up his webpage and read a little about him, and I listened to some of his new songs . . . and rediscovered Dan Fogelberg.  And from that tiny bit of research, I found a song called Icarus Ascending, and these words:

                                    . . . So don't look down
                          Though your heart may be weary
                                        Don't look down
                            Though your wings are on fire
                                        Don't look down
                        Though the night may seem endless
                             There's a reason you're flying
                                     This fast and this far
                            Let your faith be your strength
                      And your love be your guiding star . . .

Probably no one knows or cares why Dan Fogelberg had some part of me with him all those years.  I guess my caring is free now, just as he is, but it no longer belongs to me.  Maybe it followed him to a place where caring is more important than it is down here.  And Dan, old buddy, I'm still flying, and I don't look down much these days . . . but up, always up because I know that's where the lighter air is always found.

And if it means anything at all now, your music has made the flight a little bit easier.

PMC, 12/27/07