Low res photos from Kansas. 

Staff Sgt Phillip “Bob” Jenkins. September 2010.

Staff Sgt Phillip “Bob” Jenkins. September, 2010.

4 1/2 hours later, here we are. And yeah, it hurt like hell. :)

What it says:

You shouldn’t stop for something that you know can’t make you free this is a choice that separates your life. No more crying for the days gone by, no one ever loses if they try. May your heart be your courage, may your hope be your cause. You are through running backwards, you got the meaning of it all.

So raise the glass and look right past the time you’ve thrown away. The tragedies and enemies, the debts you’ll never pay. And understand it’s in your hand to turn the other way and make tomorrow the first day.

I’ll stand, walk out on my own. I’m not alone on this road. My mind and vision are clear. I’m not alone while you’re here. When I’m tired and weary you are there. You saved me.

And I’ve got so much left to give.

Some of my favorites from the other night.

For once in my life, the writing isn’t coming easily. It isn’t because I cannot write anymore, nor are the words insincere. I think it is simply that I was not prepared to have to write this yet. It has been over a month and I still cannot come up with the words to make you understand what you have come to mean to me. I’m going to try. After all, “…to have so much I wish I’d said and have to walk away still” isn’t a mistake I’ll be making.

As I listen to the opening bars of You Saved Me, I close my eyes and I get flashes of the last nine years of my life. All of the shows, all of the songs, all of the memories. All of the seemingly minute details that make you who you are to me.

I remember watching you open for Jars of Clay all those years ago. I remember thinking how wonderful your music was, but how sad it was that you came from Indiana and would never really be heard from. I assumed that nobody could make it out of here intact and though I bought your CD, I didn’t keep my hopes up for success. Then I remember when “Hey Hey” was played on the Christian radio station. I’ve never been so pleased to be wrong.

I remember going to a Wizards game in Fort Wayne to watch you play after the game. I met Thom for the first time that day. He sat behind the stage and stretched the strings on his guitars while my friend Julie and myself sat and talked to him for probably an hour. I met some really crazy lady who had cassette tapes of every one of your shows, which she carried with her. I heard Black Peach for the first time that afternoon. It would be another three years before you put out the CD that contained that song.

I remember how humbled I was to watch you at the DVD taping, feeling I was in a sort of “in” crowd. I remember everyone in the audience screaming along when we requested Goodnight, Rosa and being in tears during Smile at Life Again. It was the most intimate and moving show I’ve ever been to and something I’ll never forget. The recorded version can never portray the feeling of being there.

I remember watching you at Ichthus year after year. You were always a standard and frankly, the only reason I continued going. I remember the year you were on the Deep End stage. I was scared that meant you were fading away, but there were hundreds of people who came to watch you there. The next year, you weren’t playing at Ichthus anymore. You were playing in bars to crowds of fifteen people and making a name for yourself. I’ve always respected you so deeply for that. With your drop in status within the Christian music community came something I’ve never seen before or since. Soul. Real soul.

I remember driving through a blizzard in February of 2007. I had a broken foot and the hour-long drive took three and a half hours. By the time we left the show, our car was snowed in and we had to call for a ride. There were four other people in the bar that night. Four. I grabbed a stool and my crutches and sat directly in front of the stage, camera in hand, as always. You laughed at me, rightly. It was all worth it.

I remember a hundred other memories. I remember all of the shows, all of the friends I’ve made. I think of all the setlists I’ve collected over the years. That handwriting was almost a separate character for the band, as were the guitars. These things became a part of who you are to me. “There’s a time to let it go”. I know it’s selfish of me, but I’m not ready to let it go. You’ve been my boys for nine years. You’ve seen me through everything. Losing jobs, losing loves, losing faith. Every single point in my life in the last nine years has been punctuated by your music. Through all of this, however, you know me simply as a face in the crowd. Someone who, all those years, came to your shows and danced and sang along. There are thousands of faces. I don’t presume to speak for others, but I cannot imagine I am the only one heartbroken.

How do you process heartbreak? How do you let go of your best friends when it’s a one-sided relationship? When it’s a band? When it’s the feeling you get when you see the music in person and feel as if you can breathe once again? I understand needing to get on with your lives. I understand that some day, you want to have babies and families and freedom from studios and the road. It was inevitable, really. I couldn’t actually expect you to continue being what you’ve been for another 30 years. And you certainly are going out in your prime; make no mistake of that. I would never be so selfish to deny you your life or to be angry with you for moving on. However, that makes saying goodbye no less difficult.

Over the last nine years, I have gotten to know you alongside your other fans. I have been to nearly every show within a three hour drive and quite a few non-local ones. I’ve bought every CD and played them for every person I know. I have been so incredibly fortunate to be a part of the world you have created and will be forever grateful of the part you have played in my life. You can never understand what it has meant to me. And so to you, my brothers, my friends, I tip my proverbial hat. On the 30th, I’ll sing with you, dance with you, laugh with you and cry with you. I will buy you a beer, hug you one last time and wish you the best. I hope some day our paths will cross again. But if they don’t, always remember that I have been touched more deeply than you’ll ever know by the simple acts of you being who you are and allowing me into your world. You will always be my boys. And your music will always be mine.

Connie

Of the probably hundred and fifty photos I took the night of the DVD taping, I have none. Thank you, continually failing hard drives. So I googled around and luckily, my concert companion, Chris Metcalf, happened to have this single photo in his Flickr.

May 2nd, 2004

This is me and my doggie, Maddie. She’s the love of my life. Well, one of them.