The whole ride home I thought about your life   How you were just nineteen when you took a wife   Thought of a young man, landing in France   Braver then me, the first to show up at the dance      thought what you told me that night in Berlin   How you may lose, but there’s no way you’ll win   About leaving your country when you were just ten   You came to Wisconsin and they let you in      My heart feels like a Pedal Steel   My heart knows what is real      Of all of the books that you told me to read   Here’s my little secret if you’d stay and won’t leave   You left me your shirts, a belt buckle of pearl   A legacy for me and my girl      In this whole crazy life, so big and so small   There’s so much to enjoy, but you can’t do it all   So you start everyday with a choice to decide   You think of the others who’ve lived and who’ve died   And you pray you’ll take as much away   You’ll have lived it as well at the end of the day      Of all of the things I remember   So many times to be missed   In the end with a wink and a wave   The old man just blew me a kiss   Maybe if he’d had a son,    things might have been different somehow   Maybe I wouldn’t have known you,    and I wouldn’t feel so fucked up now   Maybe if I do my best, if I do everything I can do   I’ll consider my life a success if I’m anything like you