He Was My Steady and I Was His Girl

No, we weren't in love For I knew it was for a time I set out to see the world Yet somehow I saw something in his eyes It slowed my tracks I cared in my depth He was not at fault for life How could I peel the monkey from his back? I sat in my room in Cocoa, I traveled Florida with a prominent job I brought in a thousand or so a week in the eighties, not bad fresh from the farm Yet somehow there was something beneath his eyes So, he was my steady and I was his girl He was twenty four and I, eighteen He wasn't one to cry but occassionally I held him most of the night I rough life for a kid of Georgia moonshiners drinking from the age of three and so the story goes, after a year he smiled and said I saved his life! Perhaps as a humanitarian I should've gone Later, the responsibility of a family had taken it's toll He fell back into the crud that he said I saved him from He was violent in the black-outs the next morning he didn't remember a thing My Mom begged me to leave But I had a baby that needed both a Mom and a Dad and one day many years later, I gave him a choice The alcohol, or me and the three children He said he wasn't going to change, that he couldn't and sadly and sickly I walked away The kids are all grown, I never talked badly about him really except on occassion, when I couldn't handle what all my family said and many nights go by, where I dream he's still by my side Perhaps I should've left long ago I was a humanitarian afterall He had a sense of humor that I can never forget He made me laugh when I was close to tears and the other day, my daughter confided he held my picture he said and could quit crying Perhaps I should go now, somewhere off of the cruel ground and be somewhere else Somewhere to never think of all the bad He said to the kids when he visited years ago Your Mama is the only woman I ever loved Perhaps the blackest of nights I say that I've never truly been in love at all! Pure love will never hurt you, I've heard it said... Perhaps, I'll stay awhile and remember his hand in mine Like the constant dreams When he is my steady, and I, His girl