It’s been an interesting year. They all are, I suppose, but this one has been unusually bittersweet. Becoming friends with Loretta Lynn in 2018 was such a gift to both of us, I think. She has such a beautiful family and SO many friends, and though I came into her life later, it felt like we’d been friends forever. We connected through our faith and our songwriting. My North Carolina roots and her Kentucky heritage wove together in our Tennessee talks. I loved getting to know some of her other friends and getting to know her family better. We had been acquainted through the music industry for many years, but when my son introduced me to Loretta’s beautiful granddaughter Emmy, the circle grew a little closer.

Loretta and I did not set out to write a book, not with an ambition anyway. We just wanted to share our God-conversations with everybody. She wanted me to write Gospel songs with her, so we did, along with a few Country songs just for good measure. Okay, it was more selfish than that for me. Writing the Country songs with the Queen of Country Music was my way of crying a few tears…or maybe a river. All good. Loretta had been there, too.

As we were finishing our book I realized that every song lyric in it’s pages could be googled and you could hear Loretta sing it – except for the nine new ones we wrote that inspired the book in the first place. I thought I would get some artists to cover the songs. Loretta was so positive about how well the songs would be received, how much people needed them, and how truly we had expressed our hearts. I decided I should “demo” the songs so the melodies would not be lost, but rather than demos, I decided to create an upscaled project hoping that somewhere down the road more artists will cover the tunes. And so the book had a CD companion.

A few months before the book was released, Loretta went to Heaven. Two weeks before the book was released, my Mom joined her, and so these two precious women in my life did not see the book or CD finished. Then the interviews began, and here I was, feeling a little lost and overwhelmed. The first question many interviewers asked me was, “What’s it like carrying the torch for Loretta Lynn?”

Oh gosh.

All I could think was, “Is that what I’m doing?” Actually, Loretta wanted to carry the torch for Christ, so if there’s a torch, it’s the light of God. As for the torch of a legacy. Loretta has incredibly talented kids and grandkids and she will live on through them. So here I am. What shall we do with me? I didn’t expect this to happen and I want to honor the work.It came from a sincere place. I’ll just keep marching, because I know that this work will be healing and insightful for a lot of soul-searching truth-telling people who just want to make a little sense of life and love and God.

*photos: Me and Loretta in a writing session; My Mom in 1960.