Blessed
I first listened to Elton John in my early teens, when Crocodile Rock and Benny and the Jets were among the most popular songs at teen dances in my small home town. His many upbeat pop hits were the soundtrack to many milestones of those years.
In 1980, weeks after I moved to New York City to attend art school, Elton opening his Central Park concert with Funeral for a Friend melding directly into Candle in the Wind. It was powerful, and prescient, a preview of an appropriate soundtrack to the maelstrom of AIDS that was about to descend on the gay community in New York. Within months of that amazing concert, I had been infected by the still undiscovered virus that became known as HIV.
In 1995, I was living in Portland – on disability – dealing with the daily side effects of early HIV medications, and the fears that came with them. I was poor. $587 a month from social security. Food stamps. Rent assistance. No cash, no movies, no restaurants, no travel, no car. It was a difficult place in which to find hope.
I met a man that summer who had the means, and romantic interest, to lift me out of that place and provide love and security in place of fear and loneliness. But my mind could not bridge the gulf between his comfortable life in Philadelphia and my situation in Portland, and I did not pursue a relationship I really wanted. But I did gain a wonderful friend. My friend, Sam, would periodically send me things he thought I might like. Clothing, books, music. Small things that were huge in my world of very limited means. He sent me Elton John’s then-new CD, “Made in England.”
One song on the album, Blessed, shook me. Its simple lyrics, by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, express a man’s hope for a future child and his blessing of that child – but it struck me in a more profound way, as the blessing of a higher power – God, the Universe, whatever it is. I heard it and felt it as a blessing on me.
Hey you, you're a child in my head.
You haven't walked yet
Your first words have yet to be said
But I swear you'll be blessed
I know you're still just a dream
your eyes might be green
Or the bluest that I've ever seen
Anyway you'll be blessed
And you, you'll be blessed
You'll have the best
I promise you that
I'll pick a star from the sky
Pull your name from a hat
I promise you that, promise you that, promise you that
You'll be blessed
I need you before I'm too old
To have and to hold
To walk with you and watch you grow
And know that you're blessed
In that dark place, this song, a message from the Universe delivered by Elton John and Sam, felt like a cocoon of love and protection surrounding me. I listened to it often. It gave me hope.
And I have been blessed. Blessed with better medications and good health. Blessed with work I love and a career I couldn’t have imagined. Blessed with wonderful friends and family. Blessed with a beautiful --home and a twelve-year relationship that keeps getting better. Just Blessed.
When I hear the song today, I still feel its effect. I am moved.