Ghost of Our Fathers — Otis Gibbs

This song is one of my free music specials, from Amazon in 2014. It's a powerful song about a neighbor friend of the narrator's father, and how the two of them had a relationship with him. Mr. Gibbs is another of the singers that I'm going to make a priority to listen more to in 2020 and 2021.

When I was very young, we had a farmhand that everyone called "Chief". At the time I didn't understand it, but he helped keep the farm running while my grandfather was ill and in the hospital. I do remember staying nights with him, and he was very kind to me. When he moved out a few years later, I ceased to see him much, and basically grew disconnected from him. I hate that I wasn't able to be closer to him when he was older and back on the farm and then in the nursing home, but the relationship just wasn't there for me like it had been then. It's hard enough to pick a relationship up 30 years later if you were an adult 30 years ago; when you're a kid there's sometimes nothing left.

This song brings Chief to mind when I listen to it. For a few minutes, I can still try to recapture that relationship that seemed to be just out of the reach of 35 year old me.

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