Ben, my favorite uncle, died this morning, and the world is instantly dimmer. I have been thinking about him a lot recently, unable to watch the Ken Burns documentary on Country Music without being mentally transported to Ben’s kitchen in Magherafelt, where he would deliver to anyone who would listen, a lengthy treatise on the contributions of Flatt and Scruggs
Ben was a talented and versatile musician, his guitar or his banjo an extension of himself. He started playing when he was a child, able to do so because my father, – just ten years old at the time and good with his hands – made him a guitar.
And, Ben kept playing. Even in the ravages of the rare cancer that would eventually take him from us, when Ben went for chemotherapy, the banjo went along with him.
Flashing back to my teenage years, when I was mostly bored with no interest in country music and much less in the conversations going on at my grandparent’s house on Sunday evenings, Ben would distract me, drawing out the opening to Fleetwood Mac’s Albatross on the guitar that was always close by. Only those who are from rural Derry can understand the incongruity of this at a time when a Northern Irish version of “Country and Western” dominated local radio, sung by people like Philomena Begley or the late Big Tom and his Mainliners. Ben was cool. He was a talker, but more than that, he was a listener with a genuine, eclectic interest in people and music.
One of my favorite memories of him comes from my brother’s recollection of my grandfather’s funeral. Our dad was one of the men doing “the lifting” that day, so my little brother needed a chaperone in the walking cortege. Ben did the honors, and understanding how strange the solemnity of it all might be for my 7-year old brother, he started the day by slipping him a five-pound note, knowing it would later be spent at the sweet shop. Unlike all the other men who were in dark-colored suits for Granda’ss funeral – without their overcoats because it was a sunny, dry day – my brother was in a light tan suit, the first my mother ever made, and Ben was, well, resplendent in a maroon corduroy suit that would have been perfect for an audition with Bob Dylan’s Touring Band or perhaps Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers. A spectacular ensemble, that suit was as surprising as the gold tooth that flashed when he smiled and the rare sun that spilled through the dense canopy of trees that day. Quintessential Ben, it belonged perfectly as he led my little brother behind the cortège up to the Hillhead.
Less than a day before he died, I reached out across time and distance to call his daughter, Amanda, to maybe brighten her day. I hadn’t expected the opportunity, knowing how rapidly he had deteriorated in recent days, but when I heard her say, “Daddy, there’s someone from America on the phone for you,” I took it. I told him goodbye and thanked him for making me laugh when I was a child, for turning me on to some of the music that would change my life. Mostly, I wanted him to know how much I appreciated him being there – abiding – with my daughter in those dreadful surreal hours, following the news that her daddy had died so far away from us. And, my lovely Sophie got to thank him for that too.
It was hard to hear him breathe with such difficulty, Ben who had always been so quick with wit and word, struggling to breathe out the last words we would ever hear from him. He told me he was done but also that there was still some hope. Maybe he added the part about hope because he could hear me crying and he didn’t want me to fret. That kind of kindness was the kind I always knew from Ben. He had already made his final arrangements. He knew it was over. He was no match for the cancer. It had been a beast. A relentless beast.
His daughter told us how it touched him to hear the voices of my daughter and myself from so far away, that a tear rolled down his face. The circle was closed, and the day was now perfect.
He died peacefully in her arms in the early hours of this morning. She tells me she is so grateful – he was with her on her first day, and she was with him on his last. The circle is unbroken.
Ben, I will never forget you.
P.S. Ben, I didn’t know until today that you practiced this song over and over before perfecting it and performing it at your daughter’s wedding. Fitting, then, that it is the one we chose to honor you with Stephen Travers of the Miami Showband on bass guitar. I think you’d like that.
Sorry for you loss. A very touching post. He sounds like a lovely man and a great character!
He was indeed. Thank you.