#helpimalive

I don't know if anybody will see this because it'll be at the bottom, but I wanted to get this story off my chest.

My dad used to love music. When I was growing up, he always had the best jams on. He had dozens of TB hard drives filled with music and other media. My parents divorced and when he would pick me up for visitation in his black Saleen Mustang he would always have tons of music burned on CD's and eventually once they were popularized loaded on his iPod rigged through the cassette player (which I thought was the most magical thing). Well one Christmas I received a first gen Ipod Touch. I had always loved the music my dad listened to, and now I could take some of that back to my mom's house when I couldn't see him. He loaded it up with a nice handful of Alt/Indie bands including Postal Service, MGMT, and Metric. I remember listening to Fantasies over and over again. On the way to school, on the way to swim meets, going out to eat, tons of car rides, family gatherings, walking 5 miles downhill to school because I missed the bus. All of the music my dad had exposed me to has a special place in my heart.

The first Metric song I ever heard was Help I'm Alive. My dad had it burned on a CD right after Kids by MGMT and right before Zombies by the Cranberries, which was right before Major Tom and Hurt by Johnny Cash. It was my first Christmas spent with my dad, his new wife, and my youngest sister who was now 2. It is and will always remain the fondest Christmas memory I have. I remember crying profusely, and my dad was concerned, his new wife was concerned, everybody wanted to make sure I was okay. I was crying because I had never felt so much love in a household before, and I felt so happy. My mom had remarried, and the household I primarily lived in had felt tense, with constant verbal, mental, and occasionally physical abuse and it remained that way for years until they divorced. Music was my escape, and my dad had given me the tools to cope with life.

A few years later when I was 16, my dad began to drink heavily and suffer from depression. Partially due to him being laid off, partially due to the immediate divorce his second wife pursued, and partially because he now couldn't see the two children he loved more than anything. He passed away from Liver Cirrhosis.

A year later I got my license and now was able to visit my little sister and her family at my leisure. The drive is long, and dangerous late at night when people are drowsy so it is definitely an all day affair. I had Help I'm Alive burned on a CD in my Ford Ranger. Excited about me getting my license, my dad's second wife had me drive us around town to eat and shop in my new truck. My little sister and I were waiting in my truck outside the grocery store while her mother was grabbing a few things.

My heart was pounding as I'm speaking to her. I hadn't seen her much at all since our father's passing, and I'm choking up because all I can see is his eyes, his smile, his cheeks. She looks exactly like my father when he was a boy. If anybody cares enough, I would love to show pictures. Well we talk for a little and I ask her if she remembers our Dad. She was so young when he passed I was worried that she hadn't. Then I remembered what track I had on my CD. I knew my dad had played this song for her like he did me, but she was much younger. When she was younger, she loved this song. She would sing along to the lyrics before she could even form full sentences. I started to play the song on the stereo and turned to her. I said "do you remember Soleil?" and she said "That's daddy's song!" with a big smile.