Have I told you about that time I ended up on the front row of the Paul McCartney concert in Nashville? It was October 16, 2014, five days after we buried my beautiful nieces, Maggie and Ellen. I thought my heart would break that week. I bought nose-bleed seat tickets for my husband for Fathers Day (some five months before). And then the concert was cancelled. It was re-scheduled for what felt like the hardest week of my life and I couldnt believe my bad luck. I had absolutely no intentions of going to sit in the nose-bleed section to watch Sir Paul only to squint my eyes at the stage a thousand feet away and cry all night. But my husband gently pushed me. We should go, he said. It might be our only chance to see him. Its on our bucket list. Lets just try. We can leave if its too hard for you to be there- but it might be good for you. So we went. We argued over where to park. Which entrance to go in. What type of food we wanted to get. And by the time we made our way to the tippy top floor of the sold-out arena, I was exhausted and kicking myself for getting out of the house. Clearly, I was not emotionally ready to be human yet, especially not with 20,000 other people around me. And thats when two girls in their early 20s randomly walked up to us. Hi! Are you guys about to sit down? Yes, why? Are you big fans of Paul? they asked. My husband said yes. How big? they responded. My husband began to name songs and albums. Oh good! they said and handed us a white envelope, These are better seats but you have to go fast. Like right now! Go! These are floor seats... It all happened so quickly that we werent sure whether to believe it or not. There were literally thousands of us making our way to top row seats in the arena- thousands of people around us buying food, drinks and souvenirs. It was loud and jumbled and- what the heck just happened? Without looking at the tickets, we literally just went the opposite direction of everyone else and tried to make our way down to the bottom floor of the arena. Once at the bottom, we split up. Ryan took his ticket and went to get in line for food. I walked to the usher, pulled the ticket out of the envelope and handed it to him. Flashing his light on the ticket, he was overcome with a big grin and said, Oh- so youre the lucky girl! Lucky? I looked at him blankly, not understanding. If he only had any idea what the past two weeks of my life had been like, lucky was not the word I would have chosen. You, my dear, are the one lucky person out of 20,000 people tonight who gets a front seat to see Sir Paul. It was then that I gasped and looked at my ticket for the first time. Front row. 20,000 people in that room and I was on the front row. The hardest week of my entire life. The hardest year of my entire life. And I was on the front row. And for three hours songs like Let It Be, Yesterday, Black Bird, Hey Jude and Eleanor Rigby were sung over this tired, weary soul. And the tears fell down my face all night long. For three hours I was comforted by some of the best musicians in the world singing words of wisdom to let it be. And for three hours I let it be. As the tears ran down my face, peace ran through my soul. And God was so near to the brokenhearted. I havent a clue how God works. I cant quite put my finger on it. What do I know of holy? This I know for sure: Music heals and that night I was sick and in need of healing. Music is a balm for my soul. And so whether by sheer luck or divine mercy- though I believe it was divine- I will always remember that night as a miracle for a girl who really needed one.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 03:12:11 +0000
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