My dad was the kind of man who liked to make people’s dreams come true. One day, I came home from school to find him sitting on my bed plucking the strings of a red guitar, each pluck accompanied by a word:

My. Dog. Has. Fleas.

I must have been 13 or 14 and he knew I wanted a guitar but couldn’t afford one. He also knew that my habit of borrowing my brother’s guitar was a bone of contention under his roof. So he bought me a guitar expecting no payment in return other than my blinding joy.

It says a lot about my parents that even though neither of them played an instrument, all their sons do. And when he would catch us jamming our heads off at three o’clock in the morning he would flick the lights in our basement on and off and yell:

“It is three o’clock in the morning! We are trying to get some sleep! Finish that tomorrow.”

He wanted us to finish it, just not at that time. He never said it was horrible, even though sometimes it was. In light of the true horrors he had seen in his life, we were an annoyance at worst. And at our best, he could see we were trying to create something all our own out of melodies and harmonies.

That guitar started me on a musical journey I still pursue today. Playing guitar is second only to love in my life’s hierarchy of pleasure. Music is always playing in my mind. I can’t fall asleep without tapping out a beat with my foot on the mattress, like rocking a baby. I dream in songs. It’s not like I needed a lot of encouragement to play guitar, but I haven’t forgotten the encouragement he gave me that day.

Thanks, Dad.