News

Name: Becky

Story: Dear Readers,

I ask that you read my reason for wanting to meet Steven especially, and any member of the band that has become one of the focal points of my life.  I am trying to make a dream come true:  to thank Mr. Steven Tyler for the lyrics to “Dream On”, a song with the power to inspire hope at a time when all seemed lost.  Please read on…

Of all the songs I have ever heard in my life, “Dream On” written and performed by Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler is the one that speaks to me.  I cannot remember the first time I heard the song, but I remember the first time I understood how powerful the lyrics were as they reached deep within my soul and captivated me in a way no other ever has.  The moment the song reached inside me and lifted me to the safety of sanity lives etched in my brain and transcribed on my heart.  I will never forget just how desperate I felt up until that moment.

In the mid 1970s I was a sad and lonely teenager living at a time when young men went to a land called Vietnam and when they returned, if they returned, they were usually somewhat less than when they had left.  My uncle went and came back to a mental ward in the Veteran’s Hospital near us, catatonic, unresponsive, lost.  The boy next door never returned and his dog howled in grief every night.  My best friend, my protector, my confidant, and my connection to the world who kept me grounded was called away too.  He had walked me to and from school each day and I felt safe in his company.  I could tell him my secrets and they never came back to me from someone else’s lips.  We could discuss any topic on our walks home from school, and our great bond was poetry.  He was a poet and aspired to teach the world a thing or two about how life really was.  The night before he left, he gave me a hug because I would not kiss him goodbye, afraid of what my parents would do if they found out he had kissed me.  Later that night, there was a knock on the door; my best friend was there to give me a poem he had written.  His poem promised he would come back and begged me to never forget him.   He quoted some Shakespeare about how a rose, by any other name would smell just as sweet, and how we would see each other again someday because I was his rose.  That night was the last time I ever saw him, and I began mourning the huge loss from my life.  I regretted the kiss we never had and I cried myself to sleep every night, silently, and completely alone.

My family moved out of the old neighborhood, but I still had my memories and they tormented me.  To me at the time, it did not matter that others loved me, because as I saw it, the ones I deeply loved were always taken from me.  I felt helpless and that life was not worth living.  One day I stood in the back yard of the family farm we had moved to burning remnants of my past, trying to purge my memories.  Tears were my only company, and they were bitter and sad.  I wanted the burning in my soul to stop, but the tears could not quench the turmoil inside!  I decided that I would be better off dead; if I could just fall into the big fire everything would be over and my pain would be ended.  I wrestled with myself trying to find some reason to turn and walk away.  Would anybody really miss me?  Did anyone really care?  As I stood there on the edge of going this way or that, a car came tearing up the road playing music loud and clear.  The car stopped in the road, probably to investigate the source of the smoke and fire.  The song playing made me freeze in my tracks.  The words I heard I recognized from a song I’d heard on the radio before:

“Sing with me, if it's just for today

Maybe tomorrow, the good Lord will take you away.”

The song had never touched me in quite the way I felt it right then.  In that moment, it was as though a bold of lightning struck through my soul, and I instantly felt hope for the first time in a very long time.  I realized the power of living one day at a time and somehow understood that taking my own life was completely wrong.  In that moment it became very clear that it was not my privilege to take my own life; that maybe tomorrow, the good Lord would take me away, but until then to keep dreaming on…..until my dreams come true.  Steven Tyler’s trademark scream “Dream On!” emphasized for me the great effort that I would have to put forth to help myself grieve and move on with my life. 

This song most influences who I am today.  I am no longer that fragile teenager who felt no hope of a future.  Instead, I am a grown woman still trying to fulfill her dreams.  I am ever thankful for the stranger in that car who was curious about the smoky fire I had lit.  I am also very grateful to Mr. Steven Tyler for sharing his lyrics with the world as only he can.  One of my dreams is to someday be able to thank him in person and to perhaps deliver a message with meaning to his life.  His words reached out and reminded me of the gift of life and in a very real sense, saved me when no one else could.

Thank you for your time.

Becky S.

aka ladybotluvsaerosmith