Jason Becker. Don’t know of him? You should. You really, really should.

A few days ago, my husband and I were loading groceries into the car when something stopped Sean cold.  He leaned into the window of the car next to us and squinted hard, as if his eyes might have deceived him. 

“Get me a pen and paper, please,” he said, with some urgency.  My eyes shot to the neighboring car’s tires, which I expected to be over the line into our space.  My husband tolerates rude parking lot offenses about as well as he tolerates poison oak. 

But when I glanced through the window myself, I understood.  Tossed on the front seat was a Jason Becker CD.  Sean quickly scrawled “I’m so glad someone else still remembers him” on a crumbled sheet of day planner paper and left it under the windshield wiper.  Nothing more needed to be said to that kindred fan.  But plenty needs to be said to those who don’t know him.  And if any of them have found their way to this blog, please, keep reading.  This is not another “OMG, this guy TOTALLY ROCKS and you HAAAAVVEE to buy his stuff now and download his ringtones b/c OMG OMG!!!!”  Not that fan posts aren’t boring or redundant, but…they are.  And I’m not just a fan of Becker.  I’m humbled by him, I’m in awe of his talent, and I’m frightened by the circumstances that have overtaken him and could so easily have struck me.  Most of all (right now, especially), I’m hopeful that I can learn something from him.

Obsessed with guitar from birth, Jason Becker began performing publicly in the sixth grade.  As a teenager he made four albums of virtuoso-type guitar playing with Marty Friedman, and by 1990 he’d won the readers’ poll as “Best New Guitarist” in Guitar Magazine.  He joined David Lee Roth’s band when he was only 20, taking the guitar post previously occupied by Eddie Van Halen and Steve Vai.  Becker was poised to become as renowned (at least), but fate had other plans.  Jason went to the doctor to have what he described as a “lazy limp” evaluated.  He was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease).  The disease quickly sapped the strength from his body.  Using special low-density guitar strings, he was able to finish recording Roth’s album, “A Little Ain’t Enough.”  Soon after, he was composing music on a keyboard using his only working hand.  Then his voice left him.  Then the ability to breathe on his own was gone. 

Now for the uplifting part (sorry it was a long time coming).  Jason was diagnosed with the disease in 1989 and given three to five years to live.  Obviously he didn’t listen.  He’s still very much alive, and still composing music with the aid of a special machine that enables him to write with his eyes. 

As an artist, I can’t fathom what it would be like to continue to work in your craft while robbed of every single one of your tools, except your heart.  That is the part that counts, but realistically, I’m not sure I could write a book if I couldn’t read the words back to myself as I composed them; coudn’t try them out and manipulate them until I was satisfied.  To me, what Jason Becker does isn’t like writing, even though you’ve lost your hands.  It’s writing, even though you’ve lost the ability to read.  On top of everything else, he also has to deal with the reality of knowing that he will never play these compositions.  He will never be strong enough, and he must always yield the stage to those who are.  How many of us would continue to ply their arts and trades under those circumstances.

I’ve thought of Jason more and more since our sighting of the CD on the car seat.  I’ve thought of him every time i’ve turned on the news this week and heard the words “loss,” “significant loss,” “life-changing circumstances,” “fear,” “robbed,” “destroyed,” “quality of life obliterated,” and “making do.”

In each and every circumstance, these descriptors referred exclusively to the loss of money.  401ks, hedge funds, stocks.  That’s it.  And while I certainly do not want to make light of the economic hardships all of us are enduring now (and you’re in my prayers every day), I have to just go ahead and say it:

Clipping coupons is not “making do with nothing.”

Moving from a house to a less expensive apartment is not “making do with nothing.”

Shopping at the Wal-Mart instead of Neimann Marcus is not “making do with nothing.” 

Taking the bus is not “making do with nothing.”

And for heaven’s sake, checking a book out of the library instead of forking over $14.95 for it is not “making do with nothing.”  To hear the way the media describes how people are “taking shelter” during these ”horrific times,” I’m surprised my librarian friends haven’t taken to standing next to their checkout counters with a bucket, ringing a bell.                   

I don’t know how in the world a car with a Becker CD managed to get parked next to mine, just at the perfect moment.  But, typical PK, I manage to find sermons in the smallest of coincidences, angels’ wings in the air conditioning.  I needed to be reminded what real loss is.  And most of all, I needed to look at Jason’s website, and be reminded that he doesn’t consider himself to have “lost” at all.  He’s deeply spiritual, and profoundly grateful to be one of the individuals who has lived longest with this ruthless disease.

And I’m still the girl who pats herself on the back for buying the generic brand of paper towels. Talk about sacrifice.  

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