Shelby McKinnon

A few years ago when my grandpa was in the hospital, before he passed away, my grandma told me that she wanted me to sing to him. So, I brought my guitar, sat next to his hospital bed, and sang. The song I sang was originally a poem that my friend wrote to me about always being there for me. At the time it was the only song I could sing with the guitar. When I sang tears dripped from his eyes. Tubes were pumping liquid from his lungs so he couldn’t speak. He just smiled and cried. When I was done singing a woman from the next room over walked in. She looked like she had been awake for days. Her eyes were sad and red. She politely asked if I would be willing to come to her room and sing to her teenage daughter. Her daughter had been in the ICU for about a week. Her body was attacking her central nervous system, but the doctors couldn’t figure out what was causing it. Within a few days her speech was that of a child and soon after she wasn’t responding at all. Her mother said that when her daughter heard the music she started having a reaction to it. When I went into the room her daughter was laying on the bed looking over at me with a blank stare. She was so young and I thought that could be me lying there. You’d never think something like that would happen, but at any moment anyone’s life can change. I was nervous to sing to someone I didn’t know, but I sucked it up, sat next to her bed, and as she heard the first strum of my guitar her eyes lit up. When I started to sing she smiled from ear to ear and her mother cried. After the last note was played she blinked her eyes and nodded at me as if to say thank you. I should have been the one to thank her. That moment made me who I am today. It made me appreciate life and be thankful for everyday that I am alive. It felt so good to be able to take even the slightest bit of pain away with just one song. From then on music was in my blood.