(Eric’s Song)
By Sara Stutz
©2020
Teaching Page made 10/2025
Lyrics:
For those who are the most vulnerable
Who are dependent on someone’s care
Oh, watch over them
Oh, take care of them
Sara writes:
This song emerged, fully formed during very early pandemic lockdown days. My little brother Eric (52 years old) had contracted COVID in the skilled nursing facility where he lived full time. I was thinking of Eric, who was severely disabled and non-speaking and also had dementia, and worried about how he would be treated and how confused and afraid he must feel in isolation on a COVID ward in a hospital. This prayer of a song erupted out while on a long walk on a ridgetop and went out to the multitudes of people who were fighting for their lives and isolated from loved ones.
Eric was born in 1969 with Down Syndrome and lived with profound disability during his lifetime. He was a trailblazer of sorts, being in the very first cohort of kids attending public school under the IDEA act (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) which was enacted in 1975. Prior to that time, almost all persons with Eric’s level of disability were warehoused in large psychiatric hospitals for most or all of their lives. Eric survived the hospitalization from COVID and went on to contract COVID five more times over the next few years, eventually passing away from complications from pneumonia. May his memory be a blessing and a call to care for each other, especially those who are dependent on someone’s care.