Kentucky Traveler (37 page)

Well, now John and June were our neighbors in Hendersonville, and we got to know them pretty well. They were wonderful to Sharon and me. The local police used to lock up John every year for a charity fundraiser, and it was always a kick to pick up the phone and hear his voice: “Uh, Ricky, this is John. They've got me in jail again, do you think you could help bail me out?” I'd say sure, and he'd play it to the hilt: “Well, whatever you can give will help the Hendersonville Police Department, and help get me outta this here cell, too!”

John was a superstar, but you'd still see him down at the Kroger's or the post office or wherever; he didn't want to hide from people and be a celebrity recluse. I appreciated that about John and June both. As much as they could, they didn't let fame run their lives. Sharon and I took their example and decided we were not gonna let our popularity as country performers keep us from going to the store, to church, or to our kids' activities. We're gonna be part of the community just like everybody else.

John and June loved to entertain and have people over to their house for dinners and social events. We lived close by and were invited a lot, and it was always a treat. Sometimes they had a preacher come over; he'd bring the Word, and we'd have a sort of Bible study after dinnertime was over. It was always great to hear John read the Bible or pray. He was a big inspiration.

We looked forward to our visits to John and June's, and we became good friends. They were like everybody's grandparents, really, especially in the way they doted on their guests. They followed the old-time tradition of folks in the country, giving something to their guests when they left at the end of an evening. June would want Sharon to pick out a dress or an outfit she liked from her wardrobe, and she wouldn't take no for an answer. “Aw, Sharon, honey, I've got so much stuff. I'll never be able to wear it all.”

One time John took me back to his closet room, where he had his pocketknives and watches and keepsakes he'd collected over the years. John knew that I loved antique pocket watches, and during one of our visits he wanted to give me a rare vintage railroad watch from France, the kind that conductors carried in their pockets. I held it in my hands. It was forged from coin silver, and you could feel the craftsmanship that went into it. Solid and built to last. I told him, “No, John, that's way too nice to give away,” and he said, “No, you take that home and enjoy it. I've got more of these watches than I'll ever be able to wind up.”

And that's the way John was, as humble and generous as anybody I've ever met. I knew the watch was a token of friendship and affection, and it came from the heart of a man who'd been through a lot of suffering and pain and grace and redemption. I've kept it to this day, and I will always cherish it. It still works when I wind 'er up. I wouldn't take anything for that ol' railroad watch. Thanks, John.

Talk about suffering here below, and let's keep following Jesus
.

—“Talk About Suffering,” by Doc Watson, 1964

I
n 1986, I was at the top of my game. About every song we'd released as a single had gone to the top of the country charts. I'd had eleven number-one hits in five years. It was almost more than I could believe.

That summer, I had a few days off from the road. It was nice to rest up and spend time with the family at home, doing not much at all. We were living in Hendersonville, a few miles north of Nashville, and we loved the peace and quiet.

On August 17, 1986, Sharon and I were coming home from evening church service. As I pulled into the garage, the phone rang in the house, and I ran to get it while Sharon got Molly out of her car seat.

It was Brenda. That weekend, she and Andrew had gone to northern Virginia for a family reunion while Mandy had stayed with my folks in Kentucky. Brenda was raising the kids as a single mom in Lexington. We tried our best to be civil, and we were on pretty good terms with each other, as good as we could be. It's never a good divorce, no matter what you try to do. Anyhow, we stayed in touch, so I figured Brenda was just letting me know they'd made it back home safe. I was wrong.

“Andrew's been shot,” she said. “We're at the hospital in Roanoke, Virginia. Get here as quick as you can!”

“Oh, no. Where'd he get shot?”

“In the face.”

That was all she could tell me right then. She was so distraught she could hardly talk, and I could tell she was in shock. I'd never heard her sound like that. I told her I'd get there as soon as I possibly could.

I called my manager Chip Peay in a panic, and he arranged for a plane to take us to Virginia immediately. Then I called a close friend, Milton Carroll, who knew how to pray, and I asked him to come along with us. We left around midnight.

On the flight, my mind was spinning. I was wondering how in the world Andrew had been shot. He was seven years old, and he knew better than to fool with guns. The only thing I could imagine was a freak accident at the reunion. Maybe his older cousins were out banging around in the woods with a .22 rifle, and Andrew tagged along. Maybe someone had accidentally shot him.

We got to Roanoke Memorial Hospital at two in the morning, and I went straight to Andrew's room in the pediatric intensive care unit. His face was swollen, and he had a hole above his mouth. He was breathing with the help of a machine. He was in real bad shape, worse than I'd imagined. It was awful to see him like that. I just wanted to hold his hand for a while.

Brenda then explained what had happened. On Sunday night, she and Andrew were southbound on Interstate 81, heading home to Kentucky after the family reunion in Virginia. She was driving, and Andrew was up front with her. A few miles north of Roanoke, she got behind an eighteen-wheeler that was weaving in and out of the lanes, and it nearly ran her off the road a couple times. She tried to pass, but there was a construction zone, so she was stuck behind the driver for some time. This trucker was driving like a maniac, and it was making Brenda nervous. She had a long drive ahead of her, and it was already getting dark.

When the highway went back to four lanes, she tried to get past him again. By now, he was swerving his truck all over the road. She flashed her headlights and laid on the horn to warn him. She was trying to steer away from a bad situation before it got worse. All she knew was she wanted to get clear of this crazy driver.

What Brenda didn't know was that the trucker was high on drugs and out of his mind. He'd just driven a coast-to-coast run, and he'd been awake for days. He was so high he didn't even know he was headed south on I-81. He was supposed to be hauling his rig north back to Maryland. When he saw Brenda's car trying to pass, he became totally enraged.

As she drove by in the left lane, Andrew was in the passenger seat. He was looking up at the trucker and making the ol' arm-pump motion to get the guy to blow his horn, the way kids do when they see a big rig rolling down the highway. 'Course, the only one laying on the horn just then was Brenda. At that moment, the trucker shot into the car with a pistol.

Now, if Andrew had been looking straight ahead, that bullet would have likely hit him in the temple and killed him instantly. But because his head was turned, and he was looking up at the cab of the truck, the trajectory was such that the bullet hit him above the upper lip and went through his mouth and lodged in the backside of his neck. A single shot through the passenger-side window. Andrew fell over, bleeding all over the seat. Brenda was screaming as she pulled off I-81 at a truckers' weigh station to get help.

Hours later at the hospital, Brenda was still shaken up. While I was trying to make sense of what had happened, Andrew was fighting for his life. The bullet had ripped a hole above his mouth and damaged his palate, five or six teeth, his tongue, and one of his tonsils. There were shards of broken glass from the window embedded in his face and right eye.

That morning, surgeons from the trauma team were able to remove the bullet, and they tried to clean out as many of the glass fragments as they could. The operation went as well as they'd hoped it would, and it looked like he was out of danger. We thanked God that He had spared Andrew's life, but it was an incredibly close call.

Turned out the bullet was a .38-caliber. Now, how did that bullet go through his teeth and bones—right past the jugular vein and his carotid artery—and get lodged in the backside of his neck without touching any major blood vessels or doing deadly harm? I don't believe that part of it was an accident. I know who guided the bullet and saved Andrew from a certain death. The Lord, strong and mighty, in whom there is no weakness!

M
ost of all, I was just grateful Andrew was alive. But there was a real sense of anger, too, at first. It was such a senseless, random act of violence that had happened to my son. I was emotionally blown away. I was thinking,
Why him, Lord?
That question ate at me: The Lord had promised me when my kids were born that He'd take care of them, and I believed Him. I now had a lot of unanswered questions.

This was a situation where I knew I couldn't trust my feelings. I had to go to a deeper place and put my faith in God.

It was hard to get a grip on the rage I felt for the man who almost killed my son. We found out later that he'd been listening to his CB radio and heard about a little boy who'd been shot by a trucker on I-81. He realized what he'd done and stopped at a weigh station and turned himself in. Authorities searched the cab of his truck and found drugs and pills. And there was the pistol, loaded with bullets. One had been fired. It was a case of road rage that turned violent.

Andrew happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Well, fine, but I was still angry inside. How could I feel anything else toward the person who caused Andrew so much pain and suffering? And poor Brenda, I'm sure she went through that whole scene a hundred times in her mind. How could a parent not have bitterness in his or her heart? But it was Andrew who showed me a way out. We were in his hospital room after the operation, and he was able to talk a little with us. He was having a hard time understanding why it happened. I told him that the police had caught the man who shot him. I tried to explain that the man wasn't in his right mind. It was just a terrible accident. Andrew looked at me real sad and said, “Daddy, we need to pray for that man, and we need to forgive him, too, 'cause he doesn't have Jesus in his heart.”

When he said those words, I felt like I'd been grabbed and shaken. Here I was feeling hate, and Andrew was talking about forgiveness. I knew right then I was the one who needed to forgive. How could I hold bitterness in my heart against the man when Andrew had already forgiven him? God was teaching me through my son. He'd been raised up right by his mother, and his grandparents, too, and he'd been taught Christian values, so his natural reaction was to forgive.

I told Andrew how happy I was to hear him say that he forgave the man. Then I told myself I needed to forgive him, too. I knew it would take some time for me to get to that place, but I would. The only way to reach complete and lasting forgiveness is through the Lord Jesus and His example on the Cross, when He said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” How can we hold unforgiveness when God has forgiven us so much?

Right then, though, I had other things to deal with. The doctors had run more tests, and there was a problem. After studying the X-rays, they found a slight bruise in Andrew's carotid artery. It was caused by the vibrations of the bullet as it went through his neck. Those vibrations were strong enough to damage the lining of the artery and almost puncture it. That “almost” is what saved Andrew's life, and here again, we were reminded of God's grace.

He'd been spared, but now there was the matter of the damaged artery to reckon with. Tiny as the bruise was, it could become dangerous if it went untreated. There was a young doctor and an older doctor. They told us there had to be a decision made. The younger one thought Andrew would be all right without risking another operation. But the old doc was leaning the other way, and he advised us to take care of it now. “This is your call,” he said, “but I feel like we need to go in and repair the artery just in case. If he were my grandson, I'd do it.”

He told us that Andrew might be fine without the operation. But someday he could be playing football or engaged in a strenuous activity where he worked up a big sweat and got his blood pumping, and that was when this artery could go out on him. So we had to decide whether to take the risk of operating or just hope for the best down the road. We decided to let the doctors do their work.

The operation took an hour and a half, the longest ninety minutes of my life. The surgeons found a bucket-handle-shaped tear in the inner layer of the artery, just what they were looking for, and they stitched it up. When they told us the operation was a success, we prayed and thanked the Lord again for His faithfulness.

Get-well cards and best wishes came pouring in, mostly from strangers letting us know they cared. We heard from old friends, too. We got a phone call from Johnny Cash, which was so encouraging for Andrew. John told him, “Not everybody is tough enough and brave enough to go through what you've been through. God must have a real special plan for your life, son, if He spared you like this.” How cool was that? That lifted Andrew's spirits, and who wouldn't feel better after being told by Johnny Cash how brave they were? It was quite an act of kindness, and an example of how great a man he was.

Andrew was getting cards, flowers, balloons, and presents from all over. There were so many flooding in that the nurses had to store 'em in another room. FAO Schwartz, the toy store in New York City, sent a huge box of stuffed animals and toys. Andrew was embarrassed by all the attention. He said, “Dad, I can't take all these presents for myself.” So he gave a lot away to the other kids at the hospital.