Jason Isbell, “If We Were Vampires”

By SoDak

My father had Pick’s disease, which is a type of frontotemporal dementia. He had it for at least fifteen years, so it was a long decline. For the last ten years of his life, memory loss became more pronounced. He had a limited ability to hold a conversation or to communicate generally, beyond simple questions or one-line comments. When my mother would come home from work, my father would walk to the door to see her. She needed a husband to ask her how her day at work was, to help cook the meal, to make future plans. He was “present,” waiting for her to share her thoughts, but the silence was weighty. Few words passed his lips. A stare does not satisfy the need for meaningful exchange. Obviously, life does not turn out the way we want.

I have been listening obsessively to Jason Isbell’s song “If We Were Vampires,” from his record, The Nashville Sound (2017). This beautiful acoustic song hits the heart, reflecting upon the limited time we have with a loved one and the importance of these moments together.

It’s knowing that this can’t go on forever

Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone.

Maybe we’ll get forty years together, but one day I’ll be gone

or one day you’ll be gone.

Love ends for so many reasons, but it is never long enough. While my father was absent in my mother’s life in many ways, given the retreat associated with his disease, his death created a discernable void. No one waited for her at the door when she returned from work; no one was there to share a meal. The bed was colder, without his warmth next to her. Any plans she had for how they would spend their retirement years together were extinguished.

If we were vampires and death was a joke

we’d go out on the sidewalk and smoke

and laugh at all the lovers and their plans.

I wouldn’t feel the need to hold your hand.

Death is the shadow we often ignore, pretending mortality is on the distant horizon. The days slip away, without appreciating the moments we share.

Maybe time running out is a gift.

I’ll work hard ‘til the end of my shift.

Give you every second I can find

and hope it isn’t me who’s left behind.

With every listen of this song, I think of my parents, especially my mother the last eleven years since my father’s death. I also reflect upon my own relationship of the last twenty-three years, wondering who is going to be left behind, while hoping to make the time we have together matter.