Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings From the Road (18 page)

SISTER BOBBIE

Our lives are all about music and love. Love and music, inseparable; nourishment for our body and our soul. I wake up with a song, and that’s what Willie gives me: a life filled with love and music. That is what Willie gives to all those who listen.

I love you, my brother.

Your sister,

Bobbie

AMY NELSON

I have two childhood memories that battle for the place of earliest. One is sucking my fingers and hiding behind a chair. The other is driving. I would sit on Dad’s lap and steer the wheel. Together we would laugh as we bounced and wound up and down our driveway in Dripping Springs, Texas.

This is a snapshot of my dad. He was willing to put his life into the hands of a child in order to instill a sense of confidence and adventure in her. How cool is that?

When I was eight years old, he handed me a stack of mail and asked me to throw away everything that was not important.

I asked, “Should I show it to you before I throw it away?”

He said, “No, I trust you.”

I love these memories because they are times in my life where I was treated as a capable, above-average kid, and for the most part, it made me act accordingly. I wonder now what I threw away.

“Never look directly into the sun,” Mom warned me. Later, Dad would teach me to look directly into the sun just a little bit more each day, as is the practice of the sun gazers, who stare at the sun to achieve enlightenment.

I love that my dad looks at things in a different way, and I always appreciate the opportunity to do the same.

My dad is the hardest-working person I have ever known. Perhaps it’s because he was a child laborer. He was staked out in a cotton field when he was a toddler so that his grandparents could work the fields and look after him at the same time. When he was old enough to pick the cotton, that’s when he began working. And he didn’t stop. Three-quarters of a century later, he is still working, and well into his retirement years.

“If you don’t use it, you will lose it,” I’ve heard him say numerous times. He was given an incredible voice and he uses it to heal the world. He’s put in twenty-seven years with Farm Aid being a voice for farmers and nine years with the Animal Welfare Institute being a voice for horses. He has adopted seventy horses. He worked with Best Friends Animal Society to strengthen dogfighting laws in Georgia.

Aside from that, he has been uniting countless people with his music spanning the better part of the last century. He transcends boundaries, opens hearts, and unites people. He might be Jesus in disguise. Can you tell that I’m proud of him?

I wish everyone could be so fortunate as to have a dad like mine. That’s part of why I don’t mind sharing him with the world. In the spirit of sharing, here is a collective sample of Papa Willie wisdom:

Count your blessings. All we have is now, and it’s always now. Music is the most powerful healing force, because it is the one thing that can instantaneously travel to your soul. Dynamic tension. Practice it daily. We get out of the world what we project onto the world. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Never underestimate your opponent. Spin around fifty times each direction at night before going to sleep to charge your chakras. If you’re scared to do something, do it anyway. Do it because you are afraid. If there’s anything worth doing, it’s worth doing big. Either way, it takes the same amount of energy. If someone rips you off, consider it money well spent for a lesson that you will always remember. Find yourself another sucker. Horses are smarter than people. Don’t pay attention to reviews: if you believe the good ones, then you
will have to believe the bad ones. Whatever the problem, ask yourself, “Will it matter in a hundred years?” Physician, heal thyself. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Horses are smarter than people. Take my advice and do what you want to do. Don’t be an asshole. Don’t be an asshole. Don’t be an asshole.

PAULA NELSON

As long as I can remember remembering, my father has been a calm and gentle hero to me. He’d sing a song called “Yeah Blue” to my sister Amy and me when we were very little. It was a sad song, but to hear him sing the melody was very comforting. He was on the road and we were in school, and it made it hard to spend a whole lot of time together growing up, but he was always only a phone call away. He’s a great listener and has always supported his family in every way. He’s my father, but he’s also my friend.

Amy, Paula, Mickey Raphael, and me

LANA NELSON

The things I do or have done are not the things I am. What I am is a daughter so proud of her father most days I can’t discuss him without crying. He has always been there for me, never making me feel stupid for asking anything. I hope to somehow give back to him a tiny portion of what he has so freely given to each of us. It has been a lifelong goal to work with my dad in any capacity he may ever need, and I will be there until the end.

PAULA NELSON

I don’t know any other family like our family. There are so many of us from different marriages, but yet we’re all friends and very close. I believe it’s because of him we are this way. He’s a great and very wise teacher. I love him with all my heart and I am proud to be his daughter. He’s my hero. He’s my Papa Bear.

SUSIE NELSON

The eighties were traumatic for me, because my father was moving too fast. Today I’m okay with it. Faith requires me to hold a picture in my mind of what I wish to see happening. I know that my father represents that big picture. The art of the Holy Spirit, healing in song and guitar music, is obvious. His guitar instrumental “Matador” settles my spirit, and this daughter doesn’t worry about her father out there anymore. Thank you, Dad, for your guitar, your music, and your songs.

LUKAS NELSON

I admire him, so I never want to disappoint him. Even in his absences throughout the years, the morals and values he has instilled in me just by my observing him have been firmly established. When he does give advice, I am always listening with alert ears, because he has had many years to spend with a peaceful mind, and therefore has gained immeasurable wisdom.

I feel blessed to have been born at this more mature point in his life as well. He seems to have a wise river to float down at his age, and it seems to be speaking to him and he seems to be listening. I can’t know, obviously, everything that goes on in his head . . . but everything that comes out of it is rooted in love and experience. I will always strive to be the best man I know, and I am lucky because I have spent my whole life with him so far.

MICAH NELSON

My father and my mother both have always encouraged my brother and me to be our own people and stand on our own ideas as artists, but most of all, to be compassionate human beings with integrity and respect for others.

My father’s sense of humor, his compassion, his love of family, his creativity—these are some of the most valuable things I inherited from him, and I am incredibly grateful to know him and be a part of his world. My ole man is by far my ultimate hero. I love you, Pap!

RAELYN NELSON

People always ask me what it’s like to have P-dub as my grandpa. He’s a loving, kind, generous, and funny grandpa. He’s never been angry with me. His voice is always warm when we catch up on the phone, and he always has the most right thing to say in the moment. He has always been on the road, working and playing for his fans; he sure does love his fans. That’s what we’ve always known: he was on the road, working, doing what he loves to do, and it’s all for us anyway . . . and you.

ANNIE NELSON

I’m really lucky because I have a husband who is my friend as well as my love. Like all couples, we have had our differences in working out how to blend lives, families, and children. In our case we have a few families to blend, which isn’t for the faint of heart—or sissies.

We are lucky to have an amazing and talented family. All of our kids are brilliant . . . yeah, I know, but honestly they were all blessed to have Willie as their father and must have chosen him for a reason. Maybe they were really good in their past lives and won the father lottery. Was he a “Disney dad”? Sure, but he always balanced it with reason if one of them went too far. A word from him, and they were easily steered back on track. He has a way of seeing life that is a gift to anyone who is lucky enough to spend time with him, so imagine his children’s childhoods!

Anyway, that’s about as much as I care to share, except to say that the most common question people ask me is, is it hard to be Willie’s wife with all those women around, and always being interrupted? The answer is no. My husband knows where he lives, and I am grateful to everyone who hears the love in his voice through his music, and I understand . . . I love him too.