Guidepost Teen article June/July 2000 "Music Lesson" by Mark Lee of Third Day
I was 15 when I first noticed something wasn’t right with my dad.
I was driving him all over town one Saturday, a few weeks after I’d gotten my learner’s permit. All of a sudden he said in this jittery voice, “Stop the car and let me show you how to drive.”
I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. I wasn’t doing anything wrong! But I pulled over and we switched seats. Dad pushed his glasses tightly against his forehead. “Now first, you turn the key in the ignition. Then you release the parking brake…”
“Dad,” I said, “I already know all this.”
“Then you put the car into gear…”
A strange shiver went down my back. This is too weird. I thought. Dad’s not even talking to me. It’s like he’s trying to convince himself that he remembers how to drive!
When I got home, I went to my room and played a few chords on my guitar, hoping to shake it off. Last year-my freshman year-had been weird enough. I’d been hit by a truck while I was out selling donuts for my youth group, and I’d had two surgeries and missed two months of school, then ended the year up on crutches the whole year. That left me out of all the stuff I loved to do-like marching band and basketball.
I guess my dad knew how tough it was, because one day he took me over to the music store just to look around. “How do you like that one?” he asked, pointing to an acoustic guitar hanging on the wall.
“It’s cool,” I answered, turning my crutches to walk away.
My dad picked it up. “Let’s get it. Since you can’t march with the band, you have time now for guitar. I can drive you to lessons.” I was so surprised, I took him up on the offer right away.
In the months that followed I really got into the guitar. I could sit for hours and just play chords. Practicing helped me get my thoughts in order, and it made life a little less depressing.
By sophomore year, I was back in marching band, finally feeling good again. Good about everything except those strange little things that were happening with my dad-like him not remembering how to drive.
One afternoon, I came home from school and found Dad still in bed. “What’s going on? I asked. “You’re supposed to be at work in 15 minutes. You’re not going to make it!”
Dad looked groggy, which I figured was normal since he just woke up. He mumbled a few works, got dressed, and left. I didn’t think much about it until the phone range at 10:00 that night. Mom hung up, a worried look on her face. “That was your dad’s boss,” she told me. “He said your father never showed up for work.”
Mom started calling people we knew to ask if they’d seen Dad, but no one had. Finally, after midnight, he drove up. His face told us something was really wrong.
“Where on earth have you been?” Mom cried.
“I…well…I couldn’t remember where I was going. So I just drove. Then I pulled off at a restaurant. I think it was somewhere in North Carolina. Then I remembered we lived near Atlanta.”
I felt like I’d been hit by a truck all over again. Man, I thought. We’ve got to get Dad to a doctor!
It took several days for them to run all the tests. But by the end of the week, my worst fears were confirmed. Mom told me the bad news at the hospital: “It’s a brain tumor, Mark. Cancer. They’re preparing Dad for surgery now.”
I felt like someone had pulled a plug inside of me! All feeling just drained right out, and I was numb. This can’t be happening.
The operation turned out as well as could be expected. My dad was going to live a little while longer, but no one could say if that meant a few months or a few years. I knew I needed to make the most of the time I still had with Dad. But it wasn’t easy.
Dad’s personality had changed radically after the operation. He was grumpy all the time and sometimes he’d get into arguments over crazy things like the type of icing on a cake. When his hair fell out because of the radiation treatments, he started wearing hats. He didn’t even look like my dad anymore.
When I turned 16 that summer, I got a used, light blue Camaro. It was hard to be excited about having a car when I was so worried about Dad. Then, when the Camaro turned out to be a piece of junk, I got angry. Every time the car broke down I’d think, Dad used to be great at fixing cars but now he can’t help me. What am I going to do without him? I’m just a kid. I don’t want to deal with all this heavy adult stuff.
I decided to keep busy. I joined the Latin Club and the Beta Club and got a part-time job. The more active I was, the easier it was to pretend nothing was wrong. But when I walked in the back door every afternoon, I could feel myself tensing up. I’d go straight to my room, thinking, I’ll play my guitar for thirty minutes and then I’ll do my homework. Then I’d lose myself in the music and pretty soon it would be midnight.
My junior year, Dad had another operation, and his personality changed again. This time he became really laid-back, but he acted more like a kid than an adult. At first he had to walk with a cane. Then he could hardly get out of bed, and he was so out of it he needed someone to stay with him all the time. There was a lot I wanted to say to him. But how do you talk to someone who doesn’t understand, someone who doesn’t have words?
In April my Dad was admitted to a hospice-a facility where the just keep people comfortable until they die. I’d go and visit, but I mostly just sat there. During one visit I was shocked when he said something that actually made sense. I got up to leave saying, “I’ve got to check out a library book for school.”
“Well, all right,” he said, “Have a good time.”
Those turned out to be his last words to me.
By Mother’s Day we got the call that the end was near. When I got to the hospice, all my relatives were gathered, and Dad was breathing with strange, hollow rattles. Around ten that night the nurse said, “This is it.” She touched his chest. “One more breath.” And Dad died.
I completely lost it. I broke down right there and cried about everything. About losing Dad and about how I was going to miss him. About the stress and pressure I’d been under. And about how I never really got to say good-bye. But when I was done crying, I still felt drained. Empty.
My senior year, I did my best to become a happy-go-lucky kid who liked to cut up and smile and goof around in garage bands. But inside I was still searching. I’d even go to church and just sit there in a daze, thinking, How could it be part of God’s plan for me to lose my dad? Why couldn’t I just be a kid like everybody else?
In February a school talent show came up, and I got a band together with another guitar player and a guy named Mac Powell, who could really sing. One day Mac said, “You know, it’s been tough for me having to move from Alabama to a new high school. I’m a Christian, but I just don’t feel God like I used to.”
“I understand what you mean,” I said. At least Mac understood how it felt.
A few months later our band gave our first concert, at a youth rally. A friend of mine from school was the speaker that night, and he delivered a short message about how God was there for us. As he spoke, I found myself clutching my guitar tightly. “God, I want to start taking my relationship with You seriously…” It wasn’t much of a prayer, but as the words went through my mind, I felt a strange sensation. It was just the opposite of that feeling when everything drained out of me the day I found out my dad had cancer. This time I felt myself being filled up with warmth.
Now I know that all those mixed-up, numb feelings I had about Dad getting camcer and dying were normal. God understood, and He had been there even when I couldn’t “feel” Him. I looked down at the guitar my dad had given me. Dad couldn’t possibly have known what putting it into my hands would mean in my life. God had known.
As we played the last song, I remembered how much Dad had always loved my music. A new power flowed through my fingers, and I could almost hear Dad’s last words to me, “Have a good time.”
I will, Dad, I thought gratefully, I will.
Today, nearly 10 years after his father’s death, Mark Lee is still having a good-make that a great-time. Just after his high school graduation, he and his friend Mac Powell formed the band Third Day, adding the talents of bassist Tai Anderson, drummer David Carr, and guitarist Brad Avery. The group’s self-titled debut album earned them a Dove Award nomination for New Artist of the Year in 1997, and their second album, Conspiracy No. 5, snagged two Dove Awards in 1998. Third Day just finished up a 40-citly tour for their release, Time (1999), which recently won the Dove Award for Rock Album of the Year. Their new CD, Offerings-A Worship Album, will hit stores in July.
