Blair

words & music by Doug Howell (22 Oct 1979)

Blair, I was used to playing solitaire
but you caught all my defenses unaware
and my feelings long since fallen into disrepair
but you made me feel like a millionaire

how I hate the thought of leaving now
how I wish that I could stay somehow
but I will always remember you
and I will always love you
across the moments and the miles
and I will sing this song about your smile

Blair, I can close my eyes and see your golden hair
and your eyes reflecting rainbows in the air
you were an answer to a hopeless prayer
I want to wrap my arms around you
but you’re not there

how I hate the thought of leaving now
how I wish that I could stay somehow
but I will always remember you
and I will always love you
across the moments and the miles
and I will sing this song about your smile

there are so many feelings stuck in my heart
waiting for a smile from you to save it from breaking all apart

how I hate the thought of leaving now
how I wish that I could stay somehow
but I will always remember you
and I will always love you
across the moments and the miles
and I will sing this song about your smile

℗ © 1986 Dweller by the Light Stream Music, assigned to Creative Measures (ASCAP)

2011 Notes

You know, the Lord has used kids so often to speak to me at important times in my life. I’ve got several songs to prove it. And none spoke more potently than a Georgia kid by the name of Blair.

It was the fall of 1979, and I was in the midst of one of the most remarkable tours of my performing career, the last before I was to leave Kansas and return to Michigan. Yes, it was truly remarkable. Even as I look back on it now, 32 years later, I have to say it. I can’t say whether it was because of all I was going through at the time, what God was trying to tell me, that people were ripe to hear what I had to sing—or the phenomenally gorgeous weather!—but it seemed that every single concert was a special, amazing, wonderful event. And right in the middle of that remarkable trip, a few days before my birthday, I sang at Wesleyan in Macon, Georgia.

After working on lead sheets, taking a long nature walk, and borrowing a shirt, I sang to a small but enthusiastic crowd, and afterward, was escorted to Crystal by nine of Wesleyan’s finest (and probably zaniest) women. And then, behind this illustrious lineup, came a blonde, brown-eyed boy in a baseball uniform. Since I couldn’t get a word in edgewise with the nine in front of me, I said “Hi” to the him and we talked about the crazy girls. Later, as we waited for our order, they did something particularly boisterous. I rolled my eyes, happened to catch his, and he smiled so big and unaffected it just lit up the whole place.

I went over to ask his name and we talked a little about the weather and my trip and his family. I told his dad that I’d just performed at Wesleyan and asked if I could come by the next day to give Blair an album. One of the girls, Paula, later told me I should have seen his eyes light up.

So before leaving town the next day, I went by Blair’s house. There are lots of things about that visit I won’t forget: Hearing him yell “Hi,” talking and talking about anything and everything, and how he said “yes, sir” and “no, sir.” How we played frisbee and he’d catch that thing even if he had to dive for it. How he showed me around his house, and fixed me a glass of tea, and said “Thanks” for the album at least three times, and just kept radiating at me. How I took his picture by the garden and he said he’d better tuck in his shirt. And how he smiled then: posed, yes, but real. Like the sunshine that melts a winter’s worth of cold on the first warm spring day.

Too soon, it was time to leave. I got down on my knees, wrapped my arms around him, and said, “God bless you.” He said, “God bless you, too.” And he was only nine, but he was a friend to me that day, a friend that reminded me how much God cared for me, smack dab in the middle of my topsy turvy life. It seemed to me later that it must have been a little glimpse of the love of heaven, unveiled just when I needed it. A glimpse that I’ll never, ever forget.