Mike Wedeking’s sister, hit by a car as she crossed a busy street in Ocala, Fla., was dying. Mike had always prided himself on being a private person, but sitting by her bedside, he felt compelled to air his sorrow.
Across the country, his friend, Jonah Smith, was scrolling Facebook when he saw Wedeking’s post. He
read it and reread it, his eyes brimming with tears, until the words read like a melody.
Wedeking wrote not about his sister, but about the driver who had hit her. The driver had draped her body over his sister’s to protect her from traffic until paramedics arrived.
Mike felt compelled to share a story he had told almost no one: More than two decades ago, he had witnessed a car accident, the young female driver thrown from her car. Mike had held her in his arms. She begged him not
to let her die. He wasn’t allowed in the ambulance with her, and she died on the way to the hospital.
Mike had buried the pain and the regret until he sat by his sister’s bedside and watched her die.
Smith, a singer-songwriter in Los Angeles, had known Wedeking for nearly a decade. He had played many gigs at Wedeking’s barbecue joint in Des Moines.
Now, as Smith read his friend’s post, he heard the story as lyrics. He heard a voice in his head, the voice of the driver who
hit Wedeking’s sister. Smith wrote:
I started crying when he thought to take a closer look
His eyes were teary as he read me like an open book
Just when I thought he would get angry his voice got low
And he was telling me a tale from twenty years ago“That sort of beautiful empathy and humanity screamed at me and forced me to write that song,” Smith said. “As I was writing it, it felt like a gift to me.”
Smith’s gift to his friend Mike, or
a gift to himself? Was there even a difference?
Smith worked on the song for a year and a half, never mentioning to his friend that he had seen the original Facebook post. Then, this spring, he sent Mike a demo of a song he called “Ocala.” Smith told his friend it was inspired by his story. Wedeking wept the first time he listened to it, and when he listened to it again, and again, and again.
In October, Smith returned to Iowa, to Wedeking’s Flying Mango restaurant, a small,
colorful eatery that stands alone on a busy thoroughfare, the rich smell of cherry wood-smoked meat wafting into the parking lot.
Smith sang the words that gave voice to Wedeking’s pain. For Wedeking, it was the single greatest gift he’s ever received.
But Smith is the one who feels blessed.
“Social media is filled with a lot of trite stream of consciousness, but his post moved me,” he said. “That sort of feeling is that feeling I want people to have when they listen to my
songs. As I was writing it, it felt like a gift to me.”
By Colby Itkowitz, Washington Post
