Back from the land of the dead, Charles Lyonhart ready to play

WARWICK — Ask Charles Lyonhart what he likes best about his life these days and he’s got a few things to say about simply waking up in the morning. Lyonhart, born and raised in New York City, is a songwriter and performer who has been a resident of the Village of Florida for over twenty years now calling Warwick his home for the past three. ”Life has a whole new meaning for me these days.” Last year Lyonhart learned he had a chronic and progressive liver disease. “I really wasn’t all that surprised to hear that I was going into liver failure. In the 60’s I did every drug that I could get my hands on and then some. There wasn’t enough medication for me. The pain was so great I just couldn’t bear it at times” Growing up in boarding schools and living on his own since he was ten, Lyonhart learned the rules of survival. To replace the home life that was absent in his own life, he turned to heroin in the summer of 1969. “I didn’t feel the emptiness that I had always felt. The drugs seemed to fill that big hole in my soul.” Lyonhart has been clean and sober for more than 30 years. He is the proud father of three children and one grandson. His daughter Dawn, a second lieutenant in the United States Army, just returned from abroad a few weeks ago. His youngest son, Roger, works for Gov. George Pataki in Albany while his oldest son, Henry, is studying marine biology and chemistry. After the release of his CD “Down To The Hard Line” was released, he started to feel symptoms of the Hepatitis C. The disease is called the “Silent Killer” because it can fester for well over thirty years then explode, ravaging the liver and relentlessly destroying the organ. In 2005 he was diagnosed with cirrhosis and told that if he didn’t have a liver transplant soon he would die. “I don’t think it really registered when the doctor told me that I needed the transplant. I mean an organ transplant — that’s heavy duty stuff”. After thinking it over for a few weeks and discussing it with his children and friends, he decided to get evaluated for the transplant. Meanwhile, his closest friend and fellow musician, Bluegrass singer and songsmith John Herald had taken his own life. Herald was suffering from Hepatitis C as well as emphysema and severe depression. “I guess that he just couldn’t hold on any longer. So many times we discussed suicide. We even had a suicide pact between us made years ago that if it ever got really bad for us we would both hang ourselves together”. On July 17, 2005 Herald left a message on Lyonhart’s answering machine “I want you know that I cannot hold on any longer. I’m letting you of our suicide pact since you have children and something still to live for. This will be the last thing you’ll ever hear from me. I love you very much. I’ll see you on the other side, brother” Lyonhart organized a memorial concert and the proceeds went to a fund that helps artists in need of medical help. After the show, Lyonhart walked into Newark’s University Hospital and went through six weeks of traumatic tests and interviews to be placed on the transplant list. He was called on Christmas Day. “All I wanted to do was get through the holidays before being called for the operation. I knew that this could very well be my last Christmas” The surgery was a complete success and soon he was home in Warwick where his recovery took five months and the help of his children and close friends. Within a week, Lyonhart was writing and learning how to hold a guitar against his stapled torso. Eight months since his transplant, he is working full time and writing and playing music again. The Warwick Town Fair will be his first public performance in over three years. “Just being alive is such a gift and to feel as good as I do, it feels like it should be illegal. This is an amazing thing. I feel like I am twenty years old.” The man whose first CD is entitled “Leap Of Faith” has a faith stronger than steel. “Somebody has always been watching out for me... I hope that other people can learn by my mistakes. Drugs are not the answer... It really is a dead end road. I urge everyone to think about organ donation, too.” Lyonhart will be performing with Marty Joe Kupersmith on Sunday, Sept. 3, at The Warwick Town Fair at The Warwick Valley Community Center. This story was contributed by Sarah Schwartz