~ "Happiness is the best face lift." ~

I've loved and listened to the incomparable music of Joni Mitchell since I was 15 years old — virtually every day for the past 30 years — so my son Don was a fan of hers even before he was born. What choice did he have?

When he was about 12, the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon put on a show of Joni's paintings. Don and I drove from Edmonton to Saskatoon to attend the opening, along with hundreds (if not thousands) of Joni's ardent admirers from around the world. Joni was present, surrounded wherever she went by television lights and cameras, microphones, and autograph-seekers.

Being a homegrown Saskatchewan girl myself, it wasn't my style to elbow my way up to the front of any of those crowds. But Don matter-of-factly assumed he'd meet his goddess of song, however inaccessible she might be. He did not take seriously my efforts to prepare him for disappointment.

Don is a delightful, happy fellow with developmental delays that put his level of comprehension at about the age of the average six-year-old. He has cerebral palsy, and walks with elbow crutches when there's no nearby wall for security. For this special event, I thought he'd be safer in his wheelchair, less likely to be bumped into and knocked over by a crowd unaware of his precarious balance. So his wheelchair was his mode of travel at the Mendel that day.

Not that Don minded. Being pushed around in the wheelchair is a rare and apparently pleasant pastime. We toured the paintings. We rolled down the hill to the bigtop tent on the banks of the South Saskatchewan River and nibbled on grapes and cheese. Eventually, I hoped, we'd bump into Joni. Meanwhile, we chatted with her other admirers and tried to keep dry under the tent when a loud thunderstorm broke and we were deluged by rain.

Still, we walked (Don rode, princelike); we talked; we hoped. Finally, approaching 10 o'clock in the evening, up to my ankles in water, weary and chilled, I broke the news to Don. He hadn't met Joni, but we had to leave.

As ever, he didn't complain. But when I tried to push him in his wheelchair back up the hill to the street, the ground was too muddy and slippery. I stopped a security guard and asked if there was a back door on the lower level of the gallery. There was, and he could do better than that; he called a co-worker and together (heroically and beyond the call of duty, I thought) they carried Don in his wheelchair up the stairs to the mainfloor level.

I mentioned to another security guard that we were about to leave without having met Joni, and that Don was a bit disappointed. She pointed and said, "She's up in that back room taking a breather from all the action; why don't you go see if she'll come down and meet him?"

The worst that could happen was that she wouldn't answer the door. I got behind the wheelchair and headed toward the stairs I'd been directed to, when who should descend them but an elegant blonde lady, glowing as only great spirits (or people who can afford great makeup) seem to. Almost running over her as she reached the bottom of the stairs, I pushed the wheelchair directly into her path and said brazenly, as any desperate mother might, "Joni, will you please meet this child?"

"Sure," she said, and bent down toward him. He reached for her hand; she took his; and he proceeded to tell her everything he knew.

"Hello, Joni Mitchell!" he crowed, grinning. "We have all your CDs! I like your paintings! It's too bad we don't have time to get to know each other better!"

He had a firm grip on her hand and she listened graciously, patiently, leaning over, as he chattered away to her. When he started repeating himself, I thought it best to release her back to the rest of her adoring public, and said "You'll have to let her go, Don. There are a lot of other people here who are waiting to talk to Joni, too."

"Okay. It was nice meeting you, Joni Mitchell!" he said.

I don't remember a word Joni said — if she got a word in edgewise — and they say that's rare for Our Joan, as she loves to talk. All I remember is how excited my son was that day, and how before she walked away from us she touched my arm and gave me a glance filled with compassion.

I've thought, since then, that she probably thought Don had no choice but to be in that wheelchair, and that because of her own experience with polio as a child, she felt a certain empathy. And I've always wished I could tell her that Don does walk, and that he enjoys his life and many pleasures — chief among them, music. And that, without exaggerating one bit, I say my son Don is the best thing that ever happened to my life.

Now that he's met the great Joni Mitchell, he sees no reason why he should not be able to meet every entertainer he admires. As far as he's concerned, it's a matter of course. And who am I to tell him otherwise?

As for me, I think of the quote "Take a child by the hand, and you take its mother by the heart." Of course, Joni's music had my heart long before she took my child by the hand. But the woman who took those precious moments out of a very hectic evening to give her full attention to a young boy who idolized her ... well, she made his day, and I will always love her for that.

Oh, and one more thing: Joni is still thought of as a folksinger, and her songs that are well known are her songs from 30 years ago, and they're great songs. But Joni has come a long way since those days and only her devoted fans seems to know it. So — not because I need to hear it, as I have most of Joan's CDs, but because others may not realize what Joni is offering these days — why not play something from one of her more recent CDs? How about Face Lift, from her Taming the Tiger CD? It's kind of fitting for a 60th birthday celebration anyway, isn't it?

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*this is a letter I sent to one of my favourite radio programs, which is celebrating Joni's 60th birthday today by reading letters from people who have met her