A Healing Place

 It’s funny how certain events can change the trajectory of things in one’s life.  And then, years later, you can see how something happening today can clearly be traced back to something that happened years before.  This is that kind of story.

On New Year's Eve of 2008, my wife Denise and I returned from a couple day stay in Roanoke Memorial Hospital.  Three evenings prior, she had been admitted there with a major headache.  After much testing, the attending physician and neurologist diagnosed her as having had a stroke in the part of the brain that controls language.  Neither of us really understood much of anything that was going on at the time, but we were grateful to be back at home.  

Over the following days and weeks, it became clearer that Denise had lost quite a bit of her ability to communicate and understand with basic and random words that go into almost any conversation.  It was like one third of her vocabulary was just gone.  It was scary for both of us.  It wasn’t clear if or how she could get it back.  On top of that came major fear and panic attacks when she was anywhere outside of the house.  This all went on for a long time, literally several years.  Thankfully, over time, her brain healed and rewired itself.  She had to relearn all of the lost words, which took an incredible amount of work on her part.  Today, you would never know that anything like that had ever happened to her,  Hold that thought.

During the initial months of recovery, Denise slept a lot.  Healing takes a lot of energy, so you sleep while your body heals.  I needed a distraction to keep my brain from overloading and blowing a circuit in those early months of recovery.  In the back closet was an old Yamaha guitar that I’d had forever and maybe played twice a year, mostly teaching neighborhood kids goofy songs like Dead Skunk (In the Middle of the Road) by Louden Wainwright III.  Dear Abby, an old John Prine favorite, was also played a lot, except for the fourth verse, which was somewhat R-Rated.  It couldn’t be played if there were kids in the room, lest they be tempted to re-enact it.  In any case, the old guitar came out and became my companion while Denise slept.  She liked hearing me play as she drifted in and out of sleep.

The old Yamaha had been around a long time and was in dire need of a good setup and fret dressing.  The strings buzzed a lot and it didn’t play well at all beyond the top three frets.  I’d grumble about it occasionally and Denise heard me.  The next Christmas, she surprised me with a new Recording King guitar from Fret Mill Music In Roanoke.  It was, and still is, a really nice guitar - quite a step up from the old Yamaha.  

As time progressed, Denise worked hard to overcome her fear and anxiety when it came to crowds.  Up until that time, our travels outside the house were pretty much limited to doctor visits and therapists.  We needed to expand our horizons to some place where nobody was going to get into her personal space. She was tired of feeling like a prisoner in our own house.  3rd Street Coffeehouse was a little hole in the wall live music venue where it was dark and only lightly attended.  It was a baby step - a place where she could feel relatively safe.  We did okay there and started going there more frequently.

I knew a couple of people who hung out there and they knew I played a little.  They invited me to play their open mic, and I did.  The next thing I know, they invited me to be a volunteer, pouring coffee and helping set up, etc.  Denise surprised me by asking if she could do it too.  Baby steps.  The next thing I knew, I’m running the place and we both joined the Southwest Virginia Songwriters Association, where we met a bunch of really good friends.  Many of the folks we met at 3rd Street were healing from one thing or another.  It’s that kinda place.  I wouldn’t know any of them if I hadn’t taken the old Yamaha out of the closet.  Hold that thought.

Over time, I came to know most if not all the performers who played on our stage.  One was Betsy, a longtime Roanoke folkie and, at that time, feature writer for the Roanoke Times newspaper.  A few years ago, she asked me if she could interview me for a piece she was writing for that would go in a magazine insert for the newspaper.  I said sure.  Later, she called and said she needed some photos for the piece and I met Heather, a great photographer and also a writer for the newspaper.  Heather and I became friends and I hired her a time or two after that to take pictures at Coffeehouse special events.  I wouldn’t know either Betsy or Heather if I hadn’t picked up the old Yamaha.    

As I mentioned, Heather is a writer - a really gifted writer.  When I see her work in the paper, I occasionally send her a text telling her how much I enjoyed it.  This past November, Heather wrote a front page feature article about a young Ukrainian mom and her son, who arrived in Roanoke last August as refugees from the war.  The article was as superb as it was heartbreaking to read.  I sent Heather a text, which led to another text, which led to a Christmas party at 3rd Street Coffeehouse for this young mom and her son, and the Ukrainian college roommate and her family that sponsored them to come to America.  

The Coffeehouse was packed with people that day, American and Ukrainians, who came together for a few hours of healing and celebration.  It was an amazing time of love and bonding for new friends from the other side of the world.  Seeing those beautiful smiles light up the room reminded me that 3rd Street Coffeehouse has always been a place of healing first disguised as a music venue.  Somehow, for me, this all got set in motion fourteen years ago.  It’s a path that I never would have expected.  Denise has all of her speech back, and maybe a little more.  I’m grateful for the new friends made since then and music, which is the glue of how we all stick together.  

Me and Denise