Emmylou Harris has a song called The Road…

I’ve been obsessed with it for about a month now.
“I wandered in the wilderness
For a while, I was so lost
To everything there is a season
And every blessing has its cost…”

Until this weekend, that was the part that tugged at my soul and screamed you get that. This is where you once were. And it absolutely is the truth… I was oh so very lost and in a sad season stuck counting blessings feeling like there weren’t very many and TERRIFIED of what my future looked like.

Then on the 8th of December 2003 I did something quite out of character… I was new to this world of the internet and being raised by skeptics, very WARY of it as well. There was a little voice that kept saying, this is safe, it’s music after all. Music has never steered you wrong, it’s been you constant, sober companion, your light in the dark. Go ahead and so I entered this whole new world and found people very much like me. I was welcomed by one in particular.

“You have a PG hitch cover, on your truck and you live in California?”
“Yup, I sure do!”
“You need to check out this Galleywinter.com, you’ll fit in well over there.”

I kind of blew off that last statement, I was fascinated to read the conversations about music that were happening and see the passion that everyone obviously had and it matched mine. It was really exciting for me as up until this point, I’d not really known anyone that heard the music they listened to. They were just taken what was being fed to them and not really paying attention to whether or not it was any good.

“You’re making me look stupid will you go over and say ‘hi’ “

And with that… my world as I knew it completely changed. Cope introduced me that evening to the music that would save me and to the people that would hold my hand and put back together all my broken pieces.

There are people we meet along this journey of ours and at some point in our reflecting we realize that they are instrumental in our life being what it is today. I will forever be grateful to Cope for being a person like that for me.

So the whole song is wonderful… but since hearing of Cope’s passing this in particular has been singing in my heart…

“And if it's only all about the journey in the end
On that road I'm glad I came to know you, my old friend”


Godspeed my dear friend and thank you for my life.