10/9/2022
Hi Em!
Your Dad & I got to see #AllenJackson in concert last weekend:) The name of the concert tour was #LastCall1MorefortheRoad which made me laugh. I’m sure his concerts were a big, crazy party 20 years ago but it was so amazing to see how his heart was so visibly warmed by Jesus with a great confidence & wisdom about marriage, family & faith. He cried during his performance of “Remember When.”
Your dad commented after the show, “I don’t know how you cry and keep singing/performing well.” He wrote that song over 20 years ago & has been playing it for audiences thousands of times but it is still obviously touching to him. Maybe it’s more touching to him now that he has “lived it” with his own wife & daughters & is also living and performing quite well even with a degenerative disease. Romans 15:13 The song is timeless & is about a married couple falling in love and being and staying married through life’s ups & downs & family stages & changes. I’ve listened to it thousands of times but the part that got me last night was……..
“Remember when we said when we turned gray
When the children grow up & move away
We won’t be sad, we’ll be glad
for all the life we’ve had &
And we’ll remember when.”
Sitting with your dad and listening to those lyrics as you moved to college 3 weeks ago I started crying in the middle of the concert. I think Dad was too but I honestly didn’t look at him for fear I would break down further & ruin my eye makeup.
Jackson released “Remember When” in 2003, the year you were born. The reason “we won’t be sad, we’ll be glad” struck a chord is because I have listened to & sang that lyric a million times (I’m sure all you kids know it too) but I really didn’t “get that lyric” until the concert. Oprah calls it an “ah hah” moment. As a parent I have said quite a few things like I won’t feel this or that and I’m gonna do this or that and then I do it or don’t do it or I feel exactly what I said I would or wouldn’t do.
The thing is……. I wasn’t thinking I would be sad. I have had such a great life since being your mom. Raising the 4 of you kids has been my biggest blessing. I knew this was your dream college and you worked so hard academically to be accepted in. You just looked & seemed so grown up and ready to embark on this new adventure! I honestly felt I would have been holding you back to have you go to school locally. I felt God’s call for you to be there.
Anyway, I just didn’t cry until the next day when it became reality that this stage (of having all of our kids at home) was over:( It is still hard off and on with your empty seat at the dinner table or your presence at our family bible study or leaving to school with Jules. But even though I thought I wouldn’t be sad I am glad for all the life we have had & are continuing now with having a new best facetime friend:) Alan Jackson….how did you get that lyric? Your kids were not old enough to be moving out in 2003………..It had to be the Holy Spirit.