Maurice Gibb has been nibbling away at my mind for a week now. I’m not sure what’s up, but I am motivated to post one of the inspirational Mo stories and make him and a whole world of his fans feel a bit better.

Ashley

New York City

I have been a Bee Gee Fan since I was a toddler. My mom had me when she was 17. She was a teenager in love with the guy she dated all through high school; she was crazy for him…..got pregnant..the baby was me..the classic story of a HUGE mistake. Luckily for me, my Mom kept me, married my Dad and played the Bee Gees music through it all. She tells me all kinds of stories about being blown over by Barry Gibb; she thought he was too gorgeous to be real, but then she admitted that her heart was really with Maurice.  Unfortunately, the music did not help my Dad, who started drinking pretty early on. It basically became a bad situation where Mom was raising me without his help. Dad would drink a lot in the back yard with his buddies during the summer nights…cases of beer, getting loud…Mom and I would play Bee Gee music all the time during the bad nights. It took her mind off of what was going on and her problems that she tried to hide from me. I had no idea what was happening; I just loved the music. Mom would sing like she was Whitney Houston. She told me one day she was going to sing with the Bee Gees on stage, and we’d get silly talking about it. When I was 10, my parents divorced, and I thought I would die from sadness, loneliness, confusion— whatever it was. Maybe it was all those things. I missed my Dad so much. I loved him and kept waiting for him to come and see me, but he rarely did. The next few years were bad. When Dad did finally take me for a weekend, he’d bring me to his apartment and drink and take pills. We never had any fun. I was scared, and I didn’t tell my Mom what was going on. All this time Mom and I were still singing Bee Gees music, and Mom knew about Maurice getting help for his problem. She hoped my Dad would do the same some day, but she said he wasn’t as strong as Maurice. Mom respected Maurice because she had lived with an alcoholic who was in denial. Mom and I have been going to Al Anon meetings together. Mom brought up Maurice and people started right in about him, how his music was inspiring and how he and his family were strong and courageous. We wished his wife Yvonne could have been at that meeting with us so we could talk to her about coping while Maurice was struggling and ask what she did to survive it all. There are happy endings when the alcohol stops controlling lives. We don’t have that, but we do have Maurice’s music that we play for support, as crazy as that may sound. He’s OUR Maurice. It’s therapy. I just turned 22 and I’ve never had a drink. I am in counseling for how angry I am at my Dad to this day. He gave me up for alcohol. Maurice didn’t do that. How could you not love him? Mom is going to be a groupie forever. We find that the music means more now,especially when you see what’s gone down with the brothers, and Maurice is still IN THE MUSIC with Barry and Robin. That’s something all the fans are grateful for, like my Mom. We’ll always play their music.