I Once Was Lost.
When Thanksgiving rolled around, my parents invited a slew of people to their house – all family – all very loving and Christian.
They also invited me. And Larry.
In the prior three years, mostly thanks to alcohol, I had transformed from a church-going missionary into a road-warrior biker chick. I was still a believer in some form of God, but I didn’t know what to do with my immediate family, let alone a room full of God-fearing Christians.
I didn’t want to go to the Thanksgiving dinner, and I sure didn’t want to take Larry with me. But I really, really loved my mom’s stuffing, and that only came around once a year.
So I decided it would be worth it to spend a few agonizing hours with my peace-loving, non-drinking extended family.
Larry tried to reassure me that it would be fine. “I’ll take my guitar!” he said in his normal, upbeat way. As if having a 37-year-old chain-clad sinning performer in the midst of my family reunion would be a positive thing.
So Larry, his guitar and I showed up – all of us sober. We arrived just late enough that I hoped I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone before we ate. But I talked to everyone before and during dinner, too.
After dinner, we hung around longer than I would have liked. I was itching to get to a bottle of some kind but Barry’s Bar was closed.
That’s when Larry pulled out his guitar and started taking requests. I can’t remember how many songs he played, but I do remember when someone asked him to play Amazing Grace.
Surprising everyone and especially me, Larry started strumming the tune immediately, and singing:
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me …
Within seconds, as if we were standing in the pews on a Sunday morning, my entire extended family sang:
I once was lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see …
The tone was pitch-perfect and beautiful. Everyone in my family could sing. They joined together in worshipping the heavens with voices of angels, not a croak in the house. They even knew how to harmonize.
They sang the first verse, which was all I knew. Then with Larry still strumming, they sang the second verse. And the third verse. And then they sang the first verse again. With harmonies. Without hymnals. I felt like I was listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
I stood there, jaw to the floor, incredulous. They sang and sang and sang. Larry smiled and smiled, playing for as long as they needed him to play.
It was the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard, before or since.
If I hadn’t been so dead inside, I would have wept.
Instead I felt guilty and angry and mournful. I didn’t want to think about beauty. I didn’t want to think about my loving family. I didn’t want to think about songs or harmonies or God.
I was far too lost.
I wanted to be found. But I didn’t know how that worked.
So as soon as Larry put the guitar away, I started making my way toward the door – him feeling happy and loved, and me feeling like a traitor and a fraud. I begged Larry to take me to a bar – quick – where I force-fed myself multiple beers, trying to get drunk.
But – after all the stuffing – I succeeded only in making myself more sick.
Larry and I did not attend Thanksgiving dinner again.