As I sat here today thinking of what I wanted to write about in my April blog entry, the first thing that came to mind was my co-writer friend Doug Jackson. For most of you out there in Twitter land and Facebook you may have seen my message about the loss of my dear friend and co-writer Doug Jackson.
Doug and I met on a music site called Number One Music, and for those of you who don’t know, it’s a site to where you can place your music and share with others who also have their music posted, it’s a site a lot like Reverbnation, but has these crazy little things called blincoins that you get when you share others music and they in turn can earn coins to share your music, into their Twitter or Facebook page. The more you share the more you can earn for promotions, it is time consuming to say the least but it does get your music out into the world. My main goal is to share my music with others, and hope that something in the lyrics that I write can open their hearts and touch them the way that music can sometimes heal a soul.
One day on March 30, 2017 Doug contacted me in a Direct message thanking me for sharing his music, and paid me a big compliment on my music, and from there on the friendship began. Doug was such a diamond in the rough, he was a songwriter who should have been rewarded for his many hours of dedication over the years, of writing song lyrics as well as all the melodies that go with them. Doug was confident in his abilities as a songwriter, and he knew he was good at it, but just didn’t have the means to do any marketing on his music. To him it wasn’t about the fame and fortune, it was about touching lives through his music. So many songs of Doug’s like mine are written from true to life events. We always talked about how if we could just help 1 person on a rough, and difficult day through our music we will have known we done our job. That is truly all that matters. But we always said, if we made a couple of bucks here and there that would be great too, because then we could get more music out into the world.
Doug and I had plans of doing many songs together this year and hoped to get them recorded over the next few months. We honestly wanted to share as many songs as we could, and both were looking forward to it. Some how God had different plans for Doug, must have needed a special songwriter in the heavens above. As even Doug’s song “Memories of You” you can see where in his writing that he says “God works in mysterious ways.” And isn’t that the truth. Little did we both know that God had different plans for Doug.
On the evening of March 28, 2018 Doug sent me a quick note saying he had a question he wanted to ask me about the latest song I wrote and he was putting the melody to it. It was late here in California so would have been the wee hours of the morning on March 29th. He said that he’d get back to me, but he was so excited that he came up with something, he said sometimes he has to just think about a song for awhile and usually eventually a melody would come to him sooner or later. So, when the melody came to him for this particular song, he was excited! He knew how much this song meant to me. The song we were working on was a song about my childhood and growing up and losing my mother to suicide, I know not a #1 hit by no means, but I know it would hit home for someone in the world. I remember as a child of 3 years old always begging my mother to never leave me, but little did I know something as horrific as abuse as a child took my mother’s life later on in life. My mother was a beautiful woman, full of life but her abusive childhood came back to haunt her later on in life, which in turn lead her to taking her own life. This song was going to be a song to help me heal from the pain I have felt ever since that day on May 19, 1994. Yes, 24 years ago this May 19th. You know they always say that time heals, it doesn’t completely heal, you just get through it, but you never get over it. At least not for me, but music is so healing, so comforting to me. That is why I love sharing my stories with the world. In hopes that I can help someone else that may be going through the same thing or something like it.
When a few days went by, and no word from Doug, I thought it was very unusual for him he always contacted me a few times a week just to check and see how I was doing, and when no messages came I began to worry. So, all the usually stuff came across my mind, his computer broke down, he was in the process of getting all his tax preparation’s ready to file, so thought he was just working on that as tax time was approaching quickly. But still I sent messages to all his usually places, and nothing… This wasn’t like Doug.
I was talking to a friend of mine on Twitter who is also a friend of Doug’s to see if she may have heard from him and she too hadn’t heard anything? I am not a big fan of Facebook so don’t spend much time there, but she suggested we go and see if there was any post on his Facebook page, and we both saw that he had passed away on March 30th. The shock that we both felt, the tears we cried together, how could this be? I had just talked to him the day before his passing, he wasn’t sick or if he was he didn’t say anything and for the most part Doug told me he felt pretty healthy. The post just read that Doug pasted away on March 30th, and there was a link to his Obituary and his service was on April 2, 2018. April 2, 2018 was the 2nd anniversary to my Father’s passing away. When we saw this, it was the evening of April 16, 2018.
My heart breaks for such a dear friend, and I felt awful that I didn’t even know for so long. I do not know what happened and to this day guessing it doesn’t really matter. But do know he was a true believer in God, and so he’s in God’s hands now. My only hope is that his family will find the last song we were working on so that I can finish it and get it recorded. I hope that Doug can some how get a message to them, somehow, some way, because “God truly does work in Mysterious ways”.
Here is a quote that Doug said to me in one of his messages, “Songs are just our Blessings to the People and, if we can offer them even one word, or one note that speaks to their hearts and souls, then we’ve done our job.” And he is right. I thank God that he allowed me to be a part of Doug’s final year on this Earth. He taught me so many things about songwriting and about life in general, he would joke about the reason we got along so well is because we both are the sign of Virgo, and he referred to that often. He told me I worried too much and he was right about that too. He told me that I said Thank you too much, and I told him it was just the way I was raised and would try to watch how many times I said it, but for him to remember if I don’t say it, it’s because he didn’t want me to. Doug knew at times I struggled with some things and he told me, “Be true to YOU no matter what.”
Life goes on now and so does the music inside my heart, I will continue on working on my songwriting and messages I would like to send out into the world, and I hope you will continue on listening. I have a attached his song below and hope you’ll take the time to listen, I know it will touch your heart too. I will hold a special place in this chapter of my life as I turn the page and move forward, but just know that his story will always be book marked, some place to go back to and remember, “Memories of You”.
Thank you so much for reading my story and my April 2018 Blog
With Love, Sheri Lynn