This story is a little different from my other stories because it was originally an email to you, the listener here on Medium, and I’m going through all of your responses to get a better understanding of what people want in songs for those with ADHD. One thing to keep in mind about this project is that there will only be one response per person so if you’ve read some of the others or liked any of them then go ahead and give us at least a few comments on each of them. It’s important that we have a clear picture. And because not everyone’s brain will respond how they want it to then, I will try to make it as easy as possible for those who aren’t able to speak English well enough but we can always ask questions back in Spanish.
In the beginning, when I first wrote about some of these types of lyrics I had several concerns about where I would place them. Do I put them under “Fantasy”? Or do I put them under “Halloween” instead? Then why are there three of them. Why don’t I just put everything together like it’s been done before? What does Halloween mean to me? Is that even appropriate? Well, to start off, let’s talk about our two friends. Our friend Zay’s sister has Autism and her brother is bipolar. We call him Benji. All four of their siblings have autism spectrum disorders in both brothers’ and sisters’ families. My mother was born with Alzheimer’s disease and was diagnosed with PTSD as well as depression. She suffers from anxiety and panic attacks. So now I think it’s safe to say that she may be vulnerable to seeing things in the same way we are. Her sister, my daughter, lives by herself in Mexico but has taken up hobbies such as horseback riding and spending time on lakeside resorts etc. But he doesn’t live alone. He takes care of his grandmother who helps out around the home daily. When she was younger she worked many jobs which gave her plenty of free time when she wasn’t dealing with the diagnosis of being terminally ill. Now she’s retired and doing a lot for herself because she didn’t think she could survive anymore. She’s also divorced. They just bought another house this year and even got themselves kids, twin boys. The oldest is 12 months old. His name is Lucas. Lucas and his mom are very close and I think she’s helping him to deal with his dad’s death, she’s taking care of him and making sure he’s okay. Because of that, they haven’t had much to celebrate since. But yes, now the twins are older and we’re looking forward to celebrating Christmas with them this year. They were not expecting this type of news when my husband died at age 52, so I thought it would take them a while. There was no celebration or anything. My sister tried calling him for days until finally she contacted me to tell me she’d lost her father and was devastated. My sister told me she wanted me to call Zay’s brother to come over and help her set up a fundraiser but I couldn’t find someone to call because he was in court for murder. And it took days and days to get them to sign up. Finally I did get a hold of him so he showed up, talked to my sister, and helped her organize the event. Then he asked if I could do the same for him since he loved horses so much. Yes, he said yes. Of course I told him that I would love to do it, since it’s something I’ve wanted to do for years. He sounded miserable so I asked him again if he wanted to do it. Again, he said yes. But I was still worried about the children, we don’t know what happens yet but we will soon. So I told him he wouldn’t need to do anything else. But on top of everything, he needed more money to pay his bills and I had given him money because he needed it to help support himself during retirement. Anyway, he agreed that he wouldn’t feel deprived by having to donate part of his profits of horses to charity. Since I could not afford to do a huge donation at once, I arranged together with some family members to meet each other at church for lunch that day and split 50% of whatever profit we made from selling tickets. I kept my half, and handed him his share of the pie. A couple of minutes later he came by to pick me up. He drove us in the car to his sister’s house that is five blocks away and we spent the afternoon talking about things and sharing our hopes and dreams. By the end of the evening, it seemed as though we were on good terms. For some reason, he decided we can do this again the following weekend. I asked him if he still liked music and if so, what songs might he like to listen to? He nodded without hesitation and I suggested maybe, well maybe he’ll have some new ideas for other songs. Maybe I’ll be interested in adding them to my list of favorites. Then I heard that he loved Beethoven’s 6th symphony. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard of this masterpiece of art until we played it the previous day. I remembered thinking he would like Mozart after hearing it. I also remembered thinking of listening to it when our parents were alive. I did not remember him getting on the piano, although I loved how he used his fingers to play the keyboard and I thought it looked fun and interesting. After playing that piece of music I knew that I wanted to hear more Beethoven so I reached it out to him. He smiled at me and said, “Sure, you can.” I replied, “I know I will.” At that moment, our conversation went off quickly and I ended up falling asleep on the couch with tears streaming down my face. I woke up to find myself wearing pajamas and holding my stomach. As I sat up, I realized that I had fallen asleep right next to him! I turned to look at him and a tear rolled down my cheek. I didn’t tell anyone and no one knew for hours. When I spoke of this experience to someone later they laughed and said, “Oh don’t worry about that.” I laughed and told them, “It wasn’t a fight between sleep deprivation vs. waking up to wakefulness.” They both continued laughing saying, “It was more of a struggle between trying to control anger and being mad at yourself! You must be crazy!” This comment bothered me after that and I immediately deleted it. To date, I haven’t posted this song on my Vocal page but if you are interested in checking it out please do so, click here.
