TERRY MOSHER
Maybe I have become full circle. I discovered Hank Williams as a young teen, grabbed on and didn’t let go until I was closing in on 40. But now I have come back, having exhausted all my reality and all my dreams so there isn’t much left but to break old Hank once more and maybe for the final time.
I don’t know many others who could write and sing songs that went straight to the human roots as did Hank Williams. Some of the songsters like Billy Holliday, Dinah Washington and Patsy Cline came close, but none could sing so raw and so emotional as if they lived it – and he did.
Sad was his life. He had many demons that would not let go of him. As he twisted about and struggled with them, he poured his tortured soul into the words and the music that made him famous in his mid-20s and dead before reaching 30.
Take “I Saw The Light”, which Williams wrote I believe in the backseat of a taxi that was taking him and Minnie Pearl to their next gig. Minnie congratulated him on the song, but Hank protested because, he said, he could not see the light.
“I wandered so aimless life filled with sin
I wouldn’t let my dear savior in
Then Jesus came like a stranger in the night
Praise the Lord I saw the light.
I saw the light I saw the light
No more darkness no more night
Now I’m so happy no sorrow in sight
Praise the Lord I saw the light.
Just like a blind man I wandered along
Worries and fears I claimed for my own
Then like the blind man that God gave back his sight
Praise the Lord I saw the light.
I saw the light I saw the light
No more darkness no more night
Now I’m so happy no sorrow in sight
Praise the Lord I saw the light.
I was a fool to wander and a-stray
Straight is the gate and narrow the way
Now I have traded the wrong for the right
Praise the Lord I saw the light.
I saw the light I saw the light
No more darkness no more night
Now I’m so happy no sorrow in sight
Praise the Lord I saw the light.”
I saw the light 24 years ago after a year-long and very determined search for God. That search began when our granddaughter was killed, throwing our family into brief turmoil and then into full fledged flight toward God.
It took me a year because, I guess, I’m stubborn. But when the light came on it was nothing like I had ever experienced. For six days I cried and during those days all the terrible defensive mechanizes I had constructed to get me through my teenage dark years came pouring out of the top of my head. Yes, they actually came out of the top of my head and as they did I could see them. I should have been an engineer because the construction of them was amazing, but also very destructive to my self.
Then on the seventh day I felt the hand of God and the warm of true love. There is nothing like it. It can’t be described accurately in human terms. The closest I can come is that I felt absolute love for everything and there were no agendas, no qualifiers to it.
The window to true love was open just briefly, and I realize now that God gave me a special exemption so I could see what it is like on the other side. Why He did that, I don’t know. But it was amazing, such a sense of peace and calm and love so deep nothing could scar it.
I was on the ferry going to Seattle when this all happened and as I drove off the ferry heading toward the Kingdome and a Mariner game, I prayed to God to let me continue experiencing true love.
It was to no avail. Once I got to the press box, it was gone. I longed for it to return, but the window had closed.
Hank sang as he experienced life. His words were true, his life not so true. But that’s life. In his song “Pictures from Life’s Other Side”, we learn what he was thinking.
“In the world’s mighty gallery of pictures
Hang the scenes that’re painted from life
There’s pictures of love and of passion
And there’s pictures of keys and of strife
There hung pictures of youth and of beauty
Of old age and a blushing young bride
They all hung on the wall but the saddest of all
Are the pictures from life’s other side
Just a picture from life’s other side
Someone has fell by the way
A life has gone out with the tide
That might have been happy some day
There’s a poor old mother at home
She’s watching and waiting alone
Just longing to hear from a loved one so dear
Just a picture from life’s other side
The first scene is that of a gambler
Who had lost all of his money at play
And he drowses dead mother’s ring from his finger
Which she wore long ago on her wedding day
It’s his last earthly treasure but he stakes it
Then bows his head that his shame he might hide
But when they lifted his head they found he was dead
That’s just a picture from life’s other side
Now the last scene is that by the river
Of a heartbroken mother and baby
As the harbor lights shine and they shiver
On an outcast, soon no one will save
And yet she was once a true woman
She was somebody’s darling and pride
God help her she leaps, oh there’s no one to weep
It’s just a picture from life’s other side.”
So much has transpired in the years since I first discovered Hank Williams. Most of the friends I had then have joined Hank on the other side. I’ve gotten to the point in life on this side that I’ve grown nearly irreverent. The mainstream has passed me by. Each day brings me closer to the other side. I know now that you can outlive your usefulness, which is how some people wind up in nursing homes nearly abandoned by family that is being swept downstream by the mainstream.
I knew a person who died recently who was living past his expiration date, and detested every minute of it. He was once reverent to our community, but now was passé. But there was nothing he could do about it. He just had to wait for the time that God would take him back to the other side, and put up until that time with a body that continued to rob him of strength and the vigor that he once represented as a main part of our community.
I guess that is a picture from this life’s side.
As mainstream life passes me by, I’ll go back to listening to Hank. He died 61 years ago, but his voice still gives for me some stability as I slip away.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.