Missing Dixie(79)

Tonight’s concert is to benefit an organization my mom started called Over the Rainbow. She wanted to give kids like me, well, like I used to be, a chance to learn to channel stuff, which I think means deal with stuff, through playing music.

After she and my dad adopted me, some people found out and wrote an article about us and how we met. Then all these other musicians started calling and asking how they could help out. Now it’s a really big deal, which makes my parents really happy.

My mom says I’m her pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, which makes me feel kind of special. I am pretty thankful that she met me and loved me and wanted to adopt me. I am also thankful she doesn’t say the pot of gold thing in front of the guys. Only at night before bed.

I’m pretty lucky I guess. Not only do I have a cool mom but my dad understands how I am sometimes—even when I don’t understand it myself. Through some of the events for Over the Rainbow, I’ve met some other kids like me, kids who had not-so-great parents or for one reason or another didn’t get to know their parents. It’s kind of nice not to feel alone in the world. There’s this girl, Abby, she lives near me and had kind of a tough time before Over the Rainbow and she’s okay. For a girl I guess.

Mom says that’s what music does. It connects us, makes even the loneliest person a part of something special. It helps us to feel and to heal, she says. She’s right. She usually is, but my dad says not to tell her that too much or she’ll get a big head about it.

Last week at school I turned in my essay on why I wanted to be a drummer when I grow up, a professional one like my dad. My teacher, Mrs. Kingston, said music was a hobby, not a career, and that I should rewrite it.

My mom came to school and had a very long discussion with her about this. I don’t know what happened during their talk because I had to sit out in the hall, but after it was over Mrs. Kingston said she’d made a mistake and gave me a hug and an A on my essay.

“Why do you want to be a drummer, Liam?” my mom asked me in the car on the way home. “Is it because you really love playing or because you want to be like your dad?”

I had to think about it for a while. “Both, I guess. And because on Career Day they said you should do what makes you feel good and what makes a difference in the world.”

She smiled at me and I smiled back because she’s got a really nice smile that makes it hard not to. Even if you don’t want to at first, like I didn’t when we first met, she will keep smiling at you until you do. “Music has sure made a difference in our world, hasn’t it?”

I nodded.

When I was younger, I used to wander around town. I found my mom because I heard the music coming from her house where she gave piano and violin lessons. I don’t like to think about what might’ve happened if she hadn’t been there, if she’d been on the road with the band or away at college or at any of the other places she could’ve been, if she hadn’t played the kind of music that brings you back again and again—the kind that makes you feel safe . . . connected. I shook off the weird feeling remembering those days before knowing her gave me and told her about how Teddy Gleason said music doesn’t make a difference, that doctors did because doctors saved lives and music was “unnecessary.” She rolled her eyes and said Teddy was going to grow up to live a very dull life like his dad and not to worry about it.

The song my parents wrote for me the year they didn’t think they were going to be able to adopt me begins to play and I watch my parents and my uncle onstage for a few minutes. It’s called “Losing Liam” and it launched their career, according to my mom. It also makes people cry, yet it was number one for like a ton of weeks. I guess some people like to cry.

It doesn’t make me cry. It makes me feel . . . I don’t know . . . happy, I guess, that they wanted me that much. My mom says it’s important to find happiness and that not everybody’s happy ending looks the same, and that’s okay.

Watching them, listening to the words they wrote about me and how much they love me and how badly they wanted to be my parents, I realize that Teddy really was wrong.

Music does save lives.

It saved mine.





MISSING DIXIE PLAYLIST

“Goodbye,” Who Is Fancy?

“Lonely Eyes,” Chris Young “Turning Tables,” Adele “Games,” Luke Bryan

“Better Than You Left Me,” Mickey Guyton “Marry Me,” Train

“She Don’t Love You,” Eric Paslay “Sippin’ on Fire,” Florida Georgia Line “Not in That Way,” Sam Smith “Burning House,” Cam

“I Know You,” Skylar Grey “Love You Like That,” Canaan Smith “Just a Kiss,” Lady Antebellum “I’m to Blame,” Kip Moore “Life Support,” Sam Smith “Devil’s Backbone,” The Civil Wars “I Believe,” Christina Perri “Take It Out on Me,” Florida Georgia Line “Not on Drugs,” Tove Lo “Playing with Fire,” Katie Armiger “I’m Coming Over,” Chris Young “Ride,” Chase Rice

“Lead Me,” Kip Moore

“Fly,” Maddie and Tae





Acknowledgments

WHEN I LOOK back on the year it took to write this series, it feels like a blur. A beautiful, bright, neon lit blur.