Prior to marrying my wife in 2016 I decided that I really wanted to surprise her and give her something awesome as a wedding present. The idea hit me that it would be great to write her a song and perform it as a surprise at our wedding reception. Before the wedding I told her I was going to play Diamonds by Hawk Nelson at our wedding reception and then pick a surprise song from Mat Kearney, one of her favorite artists, that I would play after.
Although I didn’t end up playing a Mat Kearney song I have seen him in concert with Amy several times. He, as well as many others, have said their best songs that get played on the radio usually get written in a very short amount of time and the ones that just barely make it on the record are the ones that they spend hours on trying to get them to work. Thankfully, this song was one of those songs that really wrote itself and came very easily. There was no shortage of words to describe how excited I was to be marrying her!
When it came time to play the song at our reception I explained to Amy and everyone else that I was sorry but I had started our marriage out with a lie. The lie was that I told her I was going to be playing a Mat Kearney song when I knew all along I would be playing the song I wrote for her. Thankfully, the song turned out great and I’m pretty sure she has forgiven me for lying to her 😉.
By My Side
January 26, 2018 was the worst day of my life. Amy and I went out to Salt Lake City, Utah for a ski trip. On our last run of the day Amy unfortunately tore her ACL and MCL at the worst spot possible and ran head on into a tree going very fast. Her injuries were very serious and life threatening and she had to immediately be airlifted to the University of Utah Hospital.
After I arrived at the hospital I had to wait four hours to see her in the ICU. It seemed like an eternity. In addition to tearing her ACL and MCL both of her lungs were punctured, her wrist was shattered, she dislocated her hip, had five fractures in her orbital bone, and had a very severe concussion.
Thankfully, five surgeries and a year of therapy later Amy fully recovered. It was a long and hard road to recovery and truly a miracle that she not only survived the accident but now has no ill effects from it either. There were so many things that needed to happen just perfectly to keep her alive and thankfully God was watching out for her to make sure that everything came together perfectly after she ran into the tree.
While I was sitting next to her the first week in the ICU I had so many emotions. I was so thankful that she was alive and not paralyzed or had any permanent head injury. But I also knew that it was going to be a very long and hard recovery for her. I started writing my thoughts down on my phone and certain things kept coming to mind over and over about all of the events and upcoming challenges. I figured that it would make a good song and in about 15 minutes I had the lyrics written down for her. When we were able to fly back to Michigan I put the music to it. 2018 was a challenging year so whenever Amy was having a hard moment I would play this song as an encouragement to her. I wanted her to know how much I loved her, how much of a miracle it was for her to be alive, and to know that if God saved her life from running into a tree he could help get her through the hard times of recovery too.
This is definitely the most heartfelt and emotional song I have ever written. I guess it’s not surprising when the person who you love more than anyone in the world has a near death experience. Even though it was a difficult time in our lives we also had so many positive things happen to us over the following year and I think both of us would now say that although it was hard we wouldn’t go back and change it even if we could.
You’re Still My Girl
My daughter is the most wonderful and sweetest girl in the world. I had been meaning to write a song for her but every time I would try to write something either the words or the music just felt off. One day I was fooling around on the piano, got the melody to this song and knew I had finally got what I was trying for. I wanted to convey to my daughter through this song how much I love her, to always be her sweet self, and that sometimes life is hard but when it is I will always be there for her. The love and bond between a dad and a daughter is unlike anything else in this world. The smile on my daughter’s face when I played it for her was worth more to me than if this song had been played over and over on radio. I’m happy that she now has a song that can tell her no matter how much she grows up she will always be my girl!
You and I
In addition to my sweet little girl, my wife and I had hoped to have more children after we were married. Unfortunately, after four years things were still not working out as we would have hoped. It was hard, especially on my wife. She would tell me things like she thought she was a failure for not being able to have a child or that I got the short end of the stick because of our inability to have children of our own. She has wanted to have children of her own for a long time and this was a very painful process for her.
When we were quarantined during coronavirus I found myself with a lot of time on my hands so I wrote this song for her. I wanted her to know that I loved her no matter what and that even if we never had biological children of our own that didn’t change my love for her one bit. And especially after her near death experience as long as we had each other that is all I needed.
Life can be hard sometimes. But in the end relationships are what really matter. And especially in my case if you have someone to walk by your side through the good and bad, even if things don’t turn out as planned you can get through anything and have a better life than you could ever dream.
