“He’s gone!” Carter’s exact words when I asked if he’d talked to Chuck. It was his own way of telling me the news. He was waiting for the moment I would expand the conversation and ask about our friend. It was said as a statement, less of an exclamation, but more like an unexpected surprise short answer, as if I’d asked if Chuck was home. Nope, He took off. He’s gone.

I told Carter that it’s been strange to mourn and grieve for days for someone who hasn’t even died yet. Chuck really got us this time.

The day before, I was struggling with the idea of calling up my friend in Hospice and offering to play some music over the phone to distract from the brutality of waiting for an excruciatingly slow death. My empathy had been tormented for days by the thought of what Earthly Hell they were all going through. My only capacity for expression was writing song lyrics from their dog’s point of view. What was poor Sophie feeling? Chuck had said it was only going to take a few days for the end to come, but then, with a little research prompted by one of Carter’s texts, I realized it could be weeks. I read that the death could even be painful with volatile illness, or drug induced and out of consciousness. I wanted to reach out. I was jumping out of my skin wanting to know. I finally expressed my concern to Carter’s wife, Darla, someone I could trust to understand, and a close friend of Chuck’s wife. She’s also well educated in medicine and understood the situation better than most.

I didn’t want to intrude or disrupt. I was struggling with my place as a friend and a musician. I was not sure if it was appropriate for me to offer my ability as a guitar player and songwriter to give him some comfort, or if I just wanted to make myself feel better, or if I should just leave them alone. My battle with reasoning with myself and my instincts were wildly confused but Darla ensured me to just follow my heart.

So I was getting ready to call Chuck and offer a private performance. I was setting up in my little studio when I noticed Carter had called earlier. I thought maybe Darla had told him about my question and he was going to give me some new information or advice. I thought, I should wait to call Chuck until I knew why Carter had called. It turned out Chuck wouldn’t have answered anyway. “He’s gone!” He took off!

I knew of Chuck’s illness and difficulty from my recent visits back to Lubbock. I’ve been visiting the dusty little big town quite often over the last few years. My good friend, Lee, died of cancer just a few years earlier, and more recently, I’ve moved my elderly mother from there, closer to my current town for caretaking. Throughout the last few years, I have reconnected with my old friends.

I consider Lubbock my home town although I only lived there for about five years, off and on. But since childhood I’ve been visiting both sides of my family that chose to settle, for some unknown reason, in Lubbock, Texas. My Aunt Linda was a school teacher along with Chuck’s mom and had been friends for years. Chuck was one of the few that had actually seen my Kids Music CD that my Aunt had bought multiples of. I’m not sure what she did with them, but I appreciated her support of ‘Bugs for Dinner ‘. She’s the only family member that’s ever purchased my music and because of her, Chuck also knew me as a musician.

I had an idea to write a song about Chuck and his wild, younger days. Especially since he was sick and most likely didn’t have but a few more years. I wanted to get it done while he was still alive and could enjoy it. I wrote down some verses and had the opportunity to let Chuck read them at a Thanksgiving get-together my Lubbock crowd called “Friendsgiving”. Chuck, Carter, and Bryan all had some input and memory corrections so I rewrote it a few times before I recorded it. All the while, Chuck’s health was declining. I pressured myself to work as fast as I could, without forcing creativity, and luckily released the song to the World in time for the now immortal Chuck to hear the finished product. I sent it out on social media but hadn’t heard from Chuck. I was hoping my friends would get it to him since he wasn’t active online much, but no one was promoting it and I didn’t want to ask. I finally worked up the courage to get his number and call him up. I didn’t know if he was okay with any of it, after all, I had put some of his pretty personal information into the public song without getting his explicit permission.

It turned out, he was fine with it. And some of the last words he said to me were thanking me for making him happy in his last months of his life. I said I knew it was a weird thing to do, but I’m glad I could do it. I’m so glad it made him happy.

He called just days before he died to say goodbye. I’m grateful and sad.

Before he died, my most recent visit to Lubbock was to a memorial for my cousin’s husband. A sudden and unexpected death. We can only use these moments for goodness as an opportunity for family to connect. While I was there in Lubbock again, I took some extra time to record video footage of a 1/24 scale model replica I made of Chuck’s old yellow, 1966, Chevy Pickup, created solely for the making of the Music Video to accompany his song. I knew his eyesight wouldn’t allow him to see the video, so I gave him the model pickup I crafted before I left town. It was the last visit. I asked Carter and Darla to go with me. They didn’t know how much I needed their support. They made it much easier for me and I’m glad they could be there for me and everyone. While sitting in the living room beside a dwindled tower of Dialysat boxes, Chuck let me play his prized ‘Zager’ guitar and even sang an improvised blues song to the tune of “Pride and Joy”. It was hilarious and beyond great to see him happy. He occasionally played with the remote control model truck, zooming it across the room and listening to where it went. He had a very nice night. Something he had very few of.

When he called that last time to tell me about his final decision, we talked long and honest. He spoke about burials and the few that couldn’t accept his fateful decision. He asked if I’d made the music video yet and although I hadn’t, I was happy to tell him some of the ideas I had. I mostly got to explain the music video so he could visualize it, which is what someone would’ve had to do anyway, so, in a way, he actually saw it before anyone ever could. I’m happy that happened too.

Each visit I had with Chuck, I was amazed at his optimism and endurance, his humor and strength. Even towards the end, he’d lost his will to live but was still listening, still telling stories, and seemed happy to have a conversation. I admire his courage to do what he did. We were never close friends, but as I explained in person and on the phone about why I wrote the song about him in the first place, I was happy to know him.

Chuck was my fourth friend to die in the last few years. Each one is different. It’s sad to know I’m learning all the ways people die and navigating so many of the confusing feelings I have.

When my friend, Lee, died, I was putting together a personal comeback music album and struggling with sobriety. One of the songs was specifically about him and his family and life as a truck driver. I was trying to get it together with music and videos for him, but I was having a hard time. I also felt like I was being egotistical and self absorbed if I played my guitar while people were hurting. As if I was making it all about me, demanding attention and taking it away from those who need it.

But with Chuck’s illness, I was trying to balance those feelings, knowing that maybe I could make things a little more bearable. I regret not being more helpful with Lee. And for some reason, I convinced myself that these friends weren’t part of my life as a musician, so I didn’t want to be a different person around them. It wasn’t until just recently I realized I was always playing music in some way or another. I’m just being stupid. I should just do what I do. I’m coming to terms that maybe my ability might also be a responsibility. I just have to learn to be comfortable with it even though I don’t want the attention.

I also give credit to Chuck for making me think about my place and my ability. As I quietly played guitar at the Friendsgiving get-together, I noticed that Chuck was really enjoying it. The way I always did even before I could play. He was even disappointed when I abruptly put the guitar away. For some reason, I suddenly felt overwhelmed with anxiety and wasn’t feeling well. I heard him say, “I guess we’re done playing guitar”.

I still have some issues with playing in certain settings. I was even shy and unprepared at the last visit with Chuck. I can’t really explain why I choke, but I’m working on it. I can play for strangers so much easier than with friends. I think maybe I don’t want to be special. I think I have a debilitating anxiety. And I think I should have worked this out a long time ago.

I’m happy and sad about the song, “Banana Truck Chuck”. It’s another friend that rightfully should have grown old and ornery. He would have been great at it.

Death is another thing about life I don’t understand. There’s nothing fair about it. It often takes good people and leaves the unworthy. It teaches me things I don’t want to know. It hurts and never heals.

The day I was going to call Chuck and play guitar, I was watering plants on a job site. I was thinking about how I could help him feel better, like watering a plant. I can’t save a sick plant, but I can make it perk up a little.

I’d also been thinking of learning a favorite Hank Williams Sr. song for about a month, so I thought maybe I could play it later. I’m not sure how appropriate ‘I’m so lonesome I could cry’ would have been, but it was followed by ‘I’ll fly away’. Strangely, my research would’ve been playing those songs on my phone at the exact same time he passed away.

It also got me thinking about those old songs. They were gritty and dark and filled with real life sadness.

“Did you ever see a Robin weep

When leaves began to die?

Like me he’s lost the will to live

I’m so lonesome I could cry”

These songs were written in a time where modern Hospice didn’t exist. People died young, painfully, in a home they’d built themselves. They didn’t understand the illness they had and the only comfort they had was in gospel and in song.

One of Chuck’s nicknames was ‘Festus’ after the wiley character in the TV western, Gunsmoke. Chuck looked and acted a bit like him and possibly died in much the same way Festus would have died, but much more quickly, peaceful, and without pain, surrounded by love and terribly missed in a home he built himself.

Rest in Peace, Festus Banana Truck Chuck. You will be greatly missed.