Another big wake-up call.....

Although some might consider Nashville to be a “big city”, the music business here is still a small community. A small group of musicians, singers and songwriters who are all bonded by our love of making music. When something happens to one of our own, even if you don’t know that person intimately, it still hits you hard. We lost one of our little community this past Friday. Darel Decounter, who was John Anderson’s keyboard player for the last 16 yrs. passed away early Friday morning, May 1st at his home in White House, TN. I didn’t know Darel all that well, but I had worked with him a few times, singing demos for him at his studio. I would also bump into him around town now and then, and of course we had mutual friends in the business, so his name would get brought up in conversation. When one of those mutual friends, Dan Drilling called me on Friday afternoon, I was completely floored when he said, “Marcia, I have some bad news. Darel died this morning.” I was so shocked that I couldn’t speak for a few seconds. I heard Dan saying, “Marcia? Are you there?”. ”Yes, I’m here.” I said. “I just can’t believe you are telling me this. He and I had been playing phone tag for the last month. He said he had something to talk with me about, and I had been meaning to call him back, but never did. Now it’s too late.” I felt horrible. Why hadn’t I made the time to call him back!?!? I guess I didn’t think that what he had to tell me was THAT important, right? Obviously I didn’t. And now, I felt awful about it.

I ran home and pulled up the last email that I had gotten from him….trying to figure out some clue as to what he was reaching out to me about. And when I re-read it, I was hit HARD by one line in particular. Here is the first part of his email to me:

Hi Marcia,

Sorry we keep playing phone tag.
Guess we're staying busy........or at least........staying busy trying to be busy. LOL

I just wanted to chat with ya.
It's been forever since we've had a chance to catch up.

I do have a couple of things I want to talk with you about, but it can wait.

Those last four words were like a dagger in my heart. BUT IT CAN WAIT. That is probably why I didn’t feel the urgency to return his call so promptly. I figured that it must not be all THAT important, so I would just call him later when I had a little more time to talk.

I don’t know about you guys, but with my crazy life, I rarely feel like I have time to just “talk” very often. I usually walk around with about 10 messages on my voicemail, all there as reminders that I “still need to call back Sue”… or “touch base with Jim” etc… and as hard as this is for me to admit, sometimes, I never DO make those calls. Just like with Darel. I didn’t make the call and now I’m left feeling really sad that I DIDN’T make the time.

Darel’s passing has been a HUGE wake-up call for me. Sometimes things can NOT wait. Don’t put off things that are important because in the blink of an eye, everything can change. Everything.

Rest in peace, Darel…… I know you are in God’s arms now. And thanks for the gift.