"Angel That's Lost" - Jenn Beaupre

Amazing!  That's the first word that comes to my mind.  We just came back from the "Kinsella Performing Arts Guild", where we saw Jenn Beaupre perform.  Wow!  I swear that was meant to be.  The thing is, we bought these tickets last February 2011.  Why would we have tickets to see this particular woman sing tonight?  We bought those tickets before we knew that we were going to break.  Before we knew we were going to have the hardest summer and season in our lives.  Before we knew... that our lives were to be changed for ever.  Jenn was booked for this show before she knew, her best friend's brother would take his own life.  Before she knew she was going to write a song called "Angel That's Lost".  Before anyone knew that her being there tonight, and my hearing her sing that song would release me from emotion I never knew I had. 

Don't you see?  God DOES have a plan for each and every one of us.  He knew!  He knew exactly what was going on all along.  He knew He was going to put me and Jenn in the same room tonight, I needed to hear that song.  It almost made me giggle.

I sat in the car before the show, Jeff went to stand in the cold to get us a good seat.  I added to my facebook status that today, January 21, 2012, Mackenzie would have been 8 months old.  I was trying to think what she would be doing today... would she be crawling?  would she be playing patty cake?  would she walk along furniture yet?  would she say "mama?" answers will never come for those questions.

When Jenn started singing tonight, I can't explain the way I felt so connected to her music.  She drew me in.  She sat at her piano and you could see she was up there because she had a passion.  I once had that passion for music.  I lost it somewhere between college and moving to Edmonton years ago.  I've written a couple songs, that I have actually sat down and put notes to.  One song was about the death of a college dorm mate.  Who knew that I would, years later, move to the town where he grew up and become friends with his sister?  crazy  I miss that music, now that I have felt it again.

Getting back to the song Jenn wrote about her friend's brother passing...  I honestly can't remember a single word from that song, other then the title, but as she sang it, I just lost it.  Yes, I was sitting second table from the front of the stage, tears running down my face, holding back the sobs.  I'm sure I was shaking.  I don't even think I heard any of the words she sang, I felt it.  I felt the hurt that she felt for her friend, I felt the passion in the music, the lyric of the song going straight to my heart.  I had to dig out the kleenex, the tears were all the way down my face, running down my neck... I squeezed Jeff's hand under the table.  I didn't have it in me to look up at him, but I know he was thinking the same thing I was.  As we stood in the line up for yummy snacks he said to me, "Well that song sure struck a chord didn't it?".

Jenn sang many original songs, and some covers too.  She sang "Poker Face" - Lady Gaga, "Hallelujah" - Leonard Cohen, "I Will Always Love You" - Dolly Parton, "The Rainbow Connection".  Are you kidding me?  Why would this woman sing that song?  No, it's not one that I sing to Anna, maybe a couple lines here and there.  But a rainbow song???  Right... I know to everyone else this is just a coincidence, maybe it is to me too.  But, i'm pretty sure in my faith, that God had a little more to do with tonight then most of you are willing to consider.  Why?  Because He has it all mapped out. 

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Mackenzie, I have never looked at the world in the same way since 8 months ago, May 21, 2011.  I find you in the smallest parts of my day, and in moments when I think no one knows you at all.  Baby girl, mommy and daddy were introduced to someone tonight, in that introduction we were said to have 1 little girl.  I hate that.  I hate it, I hate it, I hate it!!!  I just want to get up and scream, "NO!!!  You are wrong!  We have two daughters!  You hear me!?  TWO!"

Mommy didn't imagine the joy of seeing those two lines on a pregnancy test fifteen and a half months ago.  I didn't dream that I heard your heart beat.  I didn't dream that I was going to fall in love with you the first moment I saw you.  I have your ultrasound picture.  I have your foot and hand prints.  I even have your little hand to hold - a casting the hospital made.  You are real!  I'm not loosing my mind.  You didn't dissapear from my heart the day your grandpas helped lower your sweet little casket into the ground.  Your memory wasn't burried when your grandpas gently covered you up with rich prarie soil.  Your memory lives strong in mommy's heart.  I miss you.  I love you.  Mackenzie, mommy wants you back...

I know, sweet baby, that you come back to me as often as you can.  I know you want me to hold you in my arms.  I see you in the sky, I hear you in the wind.  I smile everytime you come back to me.  You were sitting heavy on my heart tonight, creating light in my spirit. 

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Jenn Beaupre, was a very unlikely artist to be featured in such a "rural" population.  Her music being so soulful (I couldn't figure out who she reminded me of... Amanda Marshall), she was very "alternative" sounding, i'm sure, to the crowd.  The average age of the crowd was mostlikely around 55.  I was sitting in my chair, trying to hold my self together.  My eyes were often closed, as I just felt the music...  Jenn, and I are the same age.  A few of the songs she sang were popular when we both would have been in high school.  She was going to do the song "Drops of Jupiter" - Train, but I think I was one of the few in the audience who knew it!  That song was very popular the spring of my highschool graduation.  Jenn's lucky that she lives in Calgary, cause if she lived closer I would demand that we be BFFs (now if she reads this she'll think I'm crazy!!!).  Maybe we were once, in a past life. I just finished listening to her talk about music on youtube, she takes the words right out of my mouth, she's just a much better vocalist and pianist then me.  ;)

The song that Jenn chose to sing to close out her show (before the encore) was "I Hope You Dance" - Lee ann Womack.  I almost laughted out loud.  I used to sing that song when I took music lessons.  Coincidence in the making from some 11 years ago...  Jeff was busy talking to people after the show.  We stood at the back of the hall, I was watching the stage to see if Jenn would come back out to pack up her things.  She did... I just had to go thank her.  I told her that I loved her song "Angel That's Lost" and asked if it would come out on her next album.  I told her how I sat in the audience and cried.  She was so happy to hear that her music moved me.  I shared with her, through my struggle to keep my voice from breaking, that we had lost our daughter.  She was shocked, she gave me a big hug.  What a beautiful soul.  Jenn, if you ever read this, keep going, keep writing, recording, singing.  You have a great future ahead of you.  I can't wait until I can go out and buy your CD with that special song on it.  Until it does, I will listen to you on youtube

 I knew that God was with me tonight, He always is, sometimes I just loose can't see Him for looking.  Tonight Jenn's music opened my eyes, so God could remind me He has a plan for me...  I just have to be wait, be patient, and walk the path.

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I'm going to encourage you to hit the links at the top of the page.  You know the words that show up in color!  They will take you to Jenn's webpage, and to youtube to hear "Angel That's Lost".  Jenn asked me to add her on my facebook, and I told her I'd link her on my blog.  So if you don't want to scroll back up, here are the links again.

Jenn Beaupre

Angel That's Lost

Thankful Thursday - Mackenzie's Song

"If I Die Young"

I am so thankful for this song.  I have talked about it before I'm sure... I had heard it many times prior to Mackenzie's birth, a really catchy tune, but never had I payed attention to the lyrics.  This is the song that came on the radio after I left the hospital where Kim's baby girl, Ally, was born.  That was such a joyful, sad day for me.  The birth of a cousin, exactly 2 months after the still birth of my little angel.  I cried that day in a way that I have never cried before.  It was a different weeping then I did at Mackenzie's funeral.  Different from the tears I shed when I first heard that radiologist say, "I'm sorry to have to tell you...".  A different breakdown then what I had in "Once Upon a Child" when I picked out Mackenzie's one and only dress.

When I went to see Kim in the hospital, I knew I walking into a room where there was a very new and preciously loved and wanted little girl.  Kim and I shared every detail of our girls' lives prior to their births.  Our tummies were growing together...  I knew walking into this room would change my life in a way.  I can remember when I found the room with the right number on the door.  Do I turn around and run?  Do I go in?  What do I say?  How do I hold her baby?  Can I handle this?  I need to do this... Lord, hold me...  I knocked on the door, and a sweet voice answered, "Come on in!" 

I walked in, looked at Kim holding her infant daughter, who she fought so hard for.  She was beaming!  She radiated joy.  Kim was the complete opposite of what I was 2 months earlier...

I just burst into tears... sitting down beside her, I looked into the face of a miracle.  Kim and I sat, and we both wept.  I think we both wept for the same reasons.  The loss of my Mackenzie, the joy for her Ally, what would have bin a kinship between 2 cousins, the loss of the memories we were going to make with our babies.  Kim cried for me, and I cried for her.  I held baby Ally... Kim told me that day that she really felt that Mackenzie was Ally's angel, watching out for her.  Ally was born early, and Kim later found out, just how lucky they were...  but she really believes that Mackenzie was there protecting her cousin.

I left that hospital in tears.  I can't even explain those emotions, they're big.  They are inconceivable.  They are your worst nightmare.  They haunt you, stalk you in the silence of the day, beat you down into the depth of despair.  Those emotions are like the flood that God sent on the world to drown out all the evil and pain created.  In the end, those emotions saved me.  Those emotions kept me aware.  Aware that I was still alive, aware that I was still breathing.  You wouldn't feel that pain if the breathe was sucked out of you.

Today, I feel like Noah.  Noah sent the dove from the ark to see if there was dry land.  The dove came back with a branch in it's mouth.  Today I imagine that this is how Noah felt when he saw that dove come back with the green branch of life.  I can see the promise God sent the world, promising to never flood the world again.  I can see that rainbow.  I feel that HOPE.

Wow, have I gotten off track... funny how that works.  The song that I am so thankful for is "If I Die Young" by the Band Perry.  When I heard it as I drove away from that hospital I really heard the words for the first time, and I cried even more intensely, cause this is what I heard...

If I die young, bury me in satin
Lay me down on a, bed of roses
Sink me in the river, at dawn
Send me away with the words of a love song

Uh oh, uh oh

Lord make me a rainbow, I'll shine down on my mother
She'll know I'm safe with you when she stands under my colors, oh well
Life ain't always what you think it ought to be, no
Ain't even grey, but she buries her baby

The sharp knife of a short life, well
I've had just enough time

If I die young, bury me in satin
Lay me down on a bed of roses
Sink me in the river at dawn
Send me away with the words of a love song

The sharp knife of a short life, well
I've had just enough time

And I'll be wearing white, when I come into your kingdom
I'm as green as the ring on my little cold finger,
I've never known the lovin' of a man
But it sure felt nice when he was holdin' my hand,
There's a boy here in town, says he'll love me forever,
Who would have thought forever could be severed by

The sharp knife of a short life, well,
I've had just enough time

So put on your best boys and I'll wear my pearls
What I never did is done

A penny for my thoughts, oh no, I'll sell 'em for a dollar
They're worth so much more after I'm a goner
And maybe then you'll hear the words I been singin'
Funny when you're dead how people start listenin'

If I die young, bury me in satin
Lay me down on a bed of roses
Sink me in the river at dawn
Send me away with the words of a love song

Uh oh (uh, oh)
The ballad of a dove (oh, uh)
Go with peace and love
Gather up your tears, keep 'em in your pocket
Save 'em for a time when you're really gonna need 'em, oh

The sharp knife of a short life, well
I've had just enough time

So put on your best boys and I'll wear my pearls

• So many things about this song reflect Mackenzie in my eyes.  She was "buried in satin", the bouquet on her casket was filled with "roses", we sent her away with the words of "Jesus Loves Me".

• "Lord make me a rainbow..." that whole verse, need I say more?

• Mackenzie did have "just enough time" to change our lives forever, to teach us... what we needed to know, about ourselves, love, and most of all faith in God.

• And maybe Mackenzie's "thoughts" are coming out here...  cause now I'm "really listening".

• She was "wearing white" and we have faith that she went to into "His Kingdom".  The reference to green and a ring... well Jeff bought me an emerald and diamond ring in Mackenzie's memory a week after she was born.

• Her daddy did "put on his best", she wasn't wearing "pearls" but her grandparents did lay her to rest with a beautiful necklace.

• I guess you could say we try to "save our tears".  And we really did use them when Jeff's cousin was tragically killed.

This song will always have such special meaning to me.  I haven't heard it in a while, have you?  Tell me what you thought of it.