Just When You Think You Don’t Matter

The call happens now and then: “it’s so hard to be an adult.” This coming from someone I will always see as twelve years old. But she’s not. She’s 27 and has lived on her own since her second year in college – with some help, of course.

Now another series of disappointments and more job related consternation. In some respects I love these conversations. It is good to know that such important decisions are still brought home. Aside from being the youngest in the family, she is also the smartest, and a career in the medical field seemed the right choice. But she has to really want to do it and the call last night indicated that was no longer the case. So it goes.

I just want her to do something that she enjoys, and if at all possible something that matters. Usually sometime in these conversations I realize, even if I don’t say it out loud, that the career I have chosen really doesn’t matter much. Strip away all the hype and my second career - a writer - is only to entertain. My time is spent creating a diversion that may or may not be used by listeners or readers to take their minds off the troubles of their day.

Today I got another call. It was from a very nice lady named Jackie. She had just heard the song “Vincent,” by Don McLean on 1590 WAKR. Jackie was in tears and just called to thank me for playing the song. There is a line in the song, “…the world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.” Jackie’s son committed suicide late last year and she is still in deep pain. For that instant, she said, the radio and that song brought her closer to her son.

It was a difficult call to take. By the time we were about to hang up we were both in tears. Suicide is not a foreign concept in the Collins family. It only happened once, and that was many years ago. It was my brother who was too complicated, too conflicted and yes too beautiful for this world.

Jackie’s call reinforced something we often forget: there are people who listen and there are people who hear. For the listeners we are quite trivial, but every now and then there are those who hear something that makes a difference, possibly a real difference in their lives.