~Maddie Claybourne Rose~

Maddie sat in the music room in her house. Rayna's funeral was the next day and this seemed to be the right place to write what she wanted to say. Just like she had when she'd written her father's eulogy, music seemed to infuse all those relationships. She'd often thought about how music had brought her parents together, two unlikely souls who connected in a way that seemed almost mystical, magical. Rayna Jaymes was Rayna Wyatt then, sixteen and ready to follow her dreams. Any fears she'd had just seemed to fuel her spirit and her desire to succeed. She'd come from a background of wealth and privilege, but none of that mattered to her. Deacon Claybourne was a poor kid from a violently dysfunctional home, one that had sent him on a path of both chasing and running from demons. He had amazing talent and, in spite of the nightmares he'd lived through, his touch on both music and lyrics spoke of something else, both heartbreak and hope.

The two of them had found each other and known immediately that what they had together was inevitable. It wasn't always easy and they had ultimately spent many years apart. They couldn't be together and yet they couldn't stay apart. Their early years were filled with love, but also with pain and agony that ultimately had torn them from each other. It was at the end of their initial relationship that she had been created, in a moment of intense love and equally intense disappointment. And yet, eventually they had found their way back to each other and learned to work through their history and come through stronger than ever.

She had her parents' music playing softly in the background, acting as the soundtrack for her thoughts. She sat on the couch, her back against the arm and her legs pulled up in front of her, a notebook resting on them. She doodled a little with her pencil and then put them down, getting up to walk over to the chest that contained important papers and old notebooks. She found what she was looking for quickly and then walked back over to the couch and sat, holding a sheet of paper in her hands. She ran one hand over the page, smoothing the folds. She could see her hand shake just a bit and she felt the pressure of tears behind her eyes and nose, just like she always did whenever she thought about her father. She took a deep breath and started to read.

I still can't quite believe my father is gone. I woke up this morning and expected to hear from him, like I always did, calling me to see how I was doing and what my day was like and to tell me what he was planning for the day. That had become our rhythm over the last almost ten years.

Two times I've been in his recovery room, waiting for him to wake up and say he was okay. The first time I was standing there. The second time I was in a bed next to his. Both times he opened his eyes and he smiled a loopy smile and he said 'hey there, sweet girl'. But this time he wouldn't be doing that, although I imagine he's looking down on me now, saying 'hey there, sweet girl, it's gonna be okay'. Except it sure doesn't feel that way.

I knew Deacon Claybourne all my life. He was my mom's bandleader back farther than I could even remember. He helped me pick at the guitar when I was little and when I got older, he became my teacher, in many more ways than just how to play the guitar. He was always patient with me, even when I'd throw a tantrum or want to quit. I loved him for as long as I can remember and I know he loved me too.

I didn't know Deacon was my father until I was thirteen. It was hard for both of us to adjust to that, at first. He told me once that it had been easy to be my Uncle Deacon, but when all the responsibility of being a dad was on him, he was scared. He still loved me the same, but he never wanted to disappoint me or do the wrong thing. Unfortunately, I disappointed him.

When I was sixteen, I wanted to be on my own. But instead of doing it the right way, I got emancipated. I said horrible things about my parents and got what I wanted. But you know what? It wasn't like I thought it would be and I really regretted my choices. Some of the things I said about my dad really hurt him a lot. It took us a long time to really be able to get through that. It was hard to talk about and hurtful for all of us. I've regretted it ever since.

But you know what? Even during the hardest times, he still stood by me. He told me once, 'Maddie, blood is everything. We may be on the opposite side of things, but I always have your back. I'll always love you, no matter what.' I sure didn't deserve that, after everything I'd done and said, but I was always grateful.

It took us a long time to really get back the connection we had. We both worked at it because we both wanted it. It was harder for him, because he was the one who was hurt, but he still showed up for me, every day. He walked me down the aisle the day I got married. He was there when both my daughters were born and he loved them so. He helped me when I struggled with career decisions and with life decisions.

My mom told me once that he was the best man she ever knew. At the time I'm not sure I appreciated it. But I know now that she was right.

Maddie stopped, wiping away the tears that streamed down her face. It was no less poignant for her now than it had been when she'd written it twelve years earlier. She had definitely not been ready to lose him. She hadn't even gotten to say goodbye or tell him, again, how much she loved him. The void he'd left her in her life since then had been enormous and painful. She looked back down at the paper.

I'm going to miss you, Dad. Every single day, I will stop and think about you and I will miss you more than you can ever know. I was lucky to have had two dads in my life, but you are the one who made me. We are tied together by blood and that's a bond that won't ever be broken, even by death.

You wanted to do your best for me and I think you always felt like it wasn't quite enough. But it was. It was enough and so much more.

My dad and I wrote a lot together. One song, in particular, seems fitting here. This is the chorus of the song 'Believing' that we wrote when I was fifteen. 'When I get the feeling that my prayers have hit the ceiling / On those darker days when my faith has lost all meaning / You keep me believing.' You kept me believing, Dad. Because you believed in me.

Deacon Claybourne was the greatest man I ever knew. I am going to miss him for the rest of my life. He was loving and giving and always there to lend a hand. He never thought he deserved much, but he truly deserved only the best. He had a good soul, in spite of everything he had to go through and everything he overcame. He had demons, but he fought them every day, and I'm proud to say that he won a lot more than he lost.

I believe he'll be watching over all of us now, making sure we're safe. Thank you, Dad, for everything. I love you and I'll miss you.

She sighed deeply. This is where I need to start. Everything Dad did, Mom did even more. She was the anchor. That's where I start.

~Daphne Conrad Summers~

Daphne stood in front of her full-length mirror. She ran her hands down the hunter green dress she was wearing, smoothing it as she did. She had pulled her hair back into a messy bun and then she slid a pair of earrings with emeralds in them into her ears. She fingered the earrings as she remembered her mother giving them to her on her twenty-first birthday. They had always been her favorite and she hoped Rayna knew she was wearing them in her honor.

She turned and walked out of the bedroom and then down the stairs. She walked over to where she'd left her purse and opened it, pulling out the two sheets of paper she'd used to write her eulogy. She'd struggled with it the day before, but then had come home from the visitation inspired. She thought again about how that happened.

####

Daphne was feeling anxious as she got dressed for visiting hours. She had sat down after lunch and tried working on a eulogy, but she felt stuck. She had, in fact, written down all those little memories she had of Rayna, like she'd told Maddie, but when she went back and looked at it again, it had felt childish. She wasn't the accomplished songwriter Maddie was. She had written songs back when she was a kid, but these days she was more business focused, as the head of Highway 65, and it had been a long time since she had felt prosaic.

She had put it away, but she knew she'd have to get back to it after they got home. She was slipping on her shoes when Nick came into the bedroom. She was wearing black slacks with a cream colored turtleneck and a matching faux fur vest. He smiled at her appreciatively. "You look beautiful, love," he said.

She smiled and then sighed. "Thank you, but I'm not sure beautiful is what I should be going for," she said.

He shrugged. "I think you can't help it," he said. "But you look…appropriate. Is that acceptable?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

"I saw you were working on your eulogy for tomorrow. Did you finish?"

She shook her head. "No, I didn't. And I'm not happy with what I did write, so I'll have to work on it later."

He walked over to her and put his hand on the back of her head, leaning in and lightly kissing her on the forehead. "Just speak from your heart," he said. "That's all you need."


Daphne was still thinking about Nick's words as she stood back watching guests mill around the room. She was startled by a voice behind her. "Excuse me, but are you Daphne Conrad?"

She turned. The man standing there was vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place him. He had shaggy salt and pepper hair and a beard and moustache. He was tall and lanky, wearing a tweed jacket and dark gray dress pants, a scarf casually wrapped around his neck. She nodded. "I am," she said.

The man looked over his shoulder, then back at her. Although he wasn't really smiling, she caught a slight twinkle in his eye. "I was hoping to see you and your sister." Daphne frowned. "Oh, I knew your mother many years ago." He smiled then. "My name is Liam McGuinnis."

Daphne's eyes widened. She knew who he was. Nick knew of him and had mentioned him more than once. And she did sort of remember him from when he'd been on tour with her mother for Red Lips/White Lies. "How did you know…."

His smile widened a bit. "When a music legend passes away, the world knows. Even if she was country." Daphne had to smile at that. "Rayna was a great lady. I hadn't seen her or talked to her in a very long time and I was sorry to hear she had died."

Daphne breathed in. "Can you wait a second and let me get my sister?" she asked.

He nodded. "Of course."

When she had returned with Maddie and introduced them, Liam said, "I just wanted you to know how much I admired your mom. She was pushy as hell when I met her but I really enjoyed working with her."

Maddie cocked her head to the side. "You produced 'The Parts I Remember' for her, right?"

He nodded, the twinkle back in his eye. "I did. It was a pretty good record, as I recall."

"It was," Daphne said. "One of her biggest sellers, plus she won a CMA and a Grammy for it."

"As did I, as her producer." He looked wistful. "I wish I could've been there to see her win. It was incredibly personal for her, that record, and she was so fearless about it." He paused. "When she came to see me to ask me to produce it for her, I really gave her a hard time. But she was fierce. And determined." He laughed softly. "She scared me a little, truth be told. She was pretty intimidating actually. She always knew what she wanted and rarely took no for an answer."

Maddie nodded. "She always was pretty determined about stuff. Very focused."

Liam pushed his hands into his coat pockets. "I really liked your mom. A lot." He winked. "I mean, a lot." Maddie and Daphne both smiled. "But my problem was I wasn't Deacon Claybourne." Maddie grinned. "I saw they finally got together."

Maddie nodded. "They did. They were married almost thirty years."

Liam raised his eyebrows. "And she was happy?"

Maddie and Daphne looked at each other. "Very," Daphne said. "Until Deacon died. Now they're together again."

Liam looked pensive. "That they are," he said. He took a deep breath. "Listen, I was on my way to LA when I heard and I made a quick stop. I wish I could be here for the funeral, but I've got to get going. I just wanted to pay my respects and tell you what a great lady she was."

Maddie and Daphne both smiled. "Thanks for coming," Daphne said. "We really appreciate it."

He smiled and touched his fingers to his forehead. They watched as he walked over to the closed casket, covered with flowers. He stood for a few minutes, his head bowed and his hands clasped in front of him. Then he raised his head and reached slowly out to lay his hand on the casket for a moment. Then he turned and walked out.

Maddie turned to Daphne. "That was really nice of him to come," she said. She looked pensive. "Do you remember him at all?"

Daphne made a face. "A little. He toured with Mom on the Red Lips/White Lies tour, I remember that."

Maddie nodded then. "That's right." She was silent for a moment, then shrugged. "Well, it was nice of him to come." She touched Daphne's arm. "I'm going to find Daniel."

Daphne nodded absently as Maddie walked away. She thought about what Liam had said, how Rayna was fierce and fearless and how determined she was. She realized that Liam had just given her what she needed to finish her eulogy.

~Maddie Claybourne Rose~

Maddie stood for a moment, looking out at the crowd. She had not really been surprised at the number of people who had come, both for the visitation and the funeral service. All the things everyone had said before were true. Rayna had been the person who'd given them a hand, helped them start or restart their career, been their cheerleader, their mentor, their friend. But she was also so much more.

She smiled. "First of all, I want to thank you all for coming, on behalf of my sister and my aunt and me. It means so much more than you can ever know that you wanted to be here to pay your respects to her. And I think she would have been very touched to know this many people wanted to be here."

She ran her tongue over her lips. "This is a day you never really think will come. When you're a kid or a young adult or even at middle age, you somehow think your parents will always be there. But we can't live forever. I'm just glad she was in my life.

"My mom was always there for me, even when I made it difficult for her. Many of you know that, when I was sixteen, I emancipated from my mom. My life had been filled with turmoil for a couple years before that and I let myself be influenced by people who didn't have my best interests at heart. But as much as I hurt her by doing that, she never gave up on me. She was always trying to protect me and to help me. She was determined we wouldn't lose each other.

"It was scary, being on my own, trying to make my own way and my own decisions. I consider myself very fortunate that I very quickly figured out I'd made a mistake and that my parents, and especially my mom, were still there for me.

"I not only learned a lot from that experience, but she taught me so much after that. I realized that, in trying to protect me and not have me have to go through some of what she did when she was starting out, she only wanted to teach me. Because of all that, she had to teach me sooner than she'd wanted to, but she did it anyway. She never gave me special favors, just because I was her daughter, and she helped me learn how to earn my way.

"But this isn't about her helping me professionally. You've heard from so many people who have talked about that. This is really about her creating a home and a family, giving my sister and me that stability and love that all kids deserve. She was always there with a hug or an encouraging word, when I needed it. She fixed up my scraped knees and got in bed with me during thunderstorms. She sang me to sleep when I was scared and gave me my very first real guitar.

"I learned how to be a mom from her. I wasn't a whole lot younger than she was when she had me, when I had my first daughter. Being a mom was scary for me, but Mom was right there with words of wisdom. I learned so much more about how she had felt, being a mom for the first time. She told me how she felt so responsible for raising a good person, how much she wanted to be a positive role model for me. She didn't have the benefit of a mom to help her and she didn't want me to have to figure everything out for myself. I think Daisy and Lily are all the better for her wisdom.

"She was there when I struggled to find my way. I don't think she ever didn't know what she was meant to do with her life, but there were so many times when I doubted myself. She used to tell me I was like my father, going through life with my heart on my sleeve. She helped me figure out how to follow my dreams without sacrificing myself or others. I learned to be a better person because of her.

"She was first and foremost my mom. We had the usual mother-daughter spats and disagreements, but she did everything she did because she loved me. Even before I was born she made decisions she thought would give me the best life. When I look back at all that, I have to give her credit for doing the best she knew how.

"But later on, as I got older, she became my friend. And, as you've heard, you couldn't have a better, more loyal friend than Rayna Jaymes. My life was infinitely richer because I was her daughter, and not in the material ways. I was loved and cared for and supported my whole life. She was an amazing woman, mother, and friend.

"You may think you know Rayna Jaymes, but I want to tell you some of the things you might not. She loved to play the guitar, even though she wasn't very good at it. And she almost always used it when she wrote a song. She traveled all around the world, but her favorite place to hang out was at a lake house north of Nashville, with my father, where she could sit on the porch and watch boats on the lake and sit on the dock with her feet in the water. She loved movies, but not scary ones. And every year, on his birthday, she would watch 'Old Yeller' with my dad. She kept doing it after he died. Country music was her favorite, of course, but she loved almost all music. One of her favorite things was going to the symphony, something she learned to love from her parents. And she loved the ballet. I think she was thrilled when her granddaughter Lily started to dance.

"She loved early morning sunrises and quiet spots along the river. She loved all kinds of flowers, but daisies were her favorite, which is why her first grandchild is named Daisy. She loved to dress up on stage, with sparkly rhinestone dresses and stiletto heels, but when she was just hanging around the house, her go to outfit was jeans, a flannel shirt – most likely one of my dad's cast offs – and boots. She liked to ride horses, something none of the rest of us really enjoyed, and that was a calming indulgence for her whenever she had the chance. And she loved to read. One of my favorite visuals was of her and my dad, curled up together on the couch reading, both of them in their glasses.

"She was certainly the great Rayna Jaymes, but she was so much more than that. She was a loving mom, a proud grandmother, a caring sister, a loyal friend, and a fiercely supportive wife. If you were part of her circle, you were her family. We've lost an amazing woman. There won't be another like her.

"Mom, I will miss you every single day. We all will."

~Daphne Conrad Summers~

Daphne felt surprisingly nervous as she walked up the steps. She turned around and realized for the first time just how many people were there. They were looking at her expectantly and she suddenly felt her mouth go dry. She took a deep breath and swallowed hard.

"More than anything else, Rayna Jaymes was a mom. My mom. I don't remember anymore exactly how old I was when I realized she was famous. Of course, she'd always been, all my life anyway. And while there certainly were times when I wanted to take advantage of that, she always tried hard to give us a normal life.

"Of course, there wasn't much that was normal about singing on the Opry stage or at the Ryman or the Bluebird. Or going out on a tour bus with her or to a tour after party. She made some of the most special moments of my life happen, like making my Opry debut when I was eleven and letting my sister and me do sound check on her tour when I was almost nine.

"But there were other special moments too, like making cookies at Christmas or going trick-or-treating with her. She helped me learn to swim and she always came to our talent shows and recitals. She was there when I was bullied at school and she let me cry on her shoulder when my first boyfriend broke up with me. She helped me pick out my wedding dress and she was there when my son was born." She choked on the last few words and took a deep breath to calm herself.

"There was a time in my life when I felt really alone and awkward and like I was sitting on the sidelines. There was a lot going on in her life too, but she was there for me. What she taught me then was to be fearless. To be fierce. To go for what I wanted and not worry about what other people think. To be true to myself. To follow my dreams. To love freely and unconditionally, even when it's hard. To never give up.

"Her life wasn't always easy. She was born into money and privilege, but she gave it up for her dream. I bet there were times when she thought about everything she'd given up for that, wondered if maybe she should give up the dream for what was easy and safe. But she persevered and she worked hard and she sacrificed. And she loved and she laughed and she fought for her dream. And, as you know, she achieved that. She was one of the great country music legends and then she helped so many others make their own dreams come true.

"When it came to love, I'm sure there were times when she wondered about her choices and whether she'd tried too hard or too long. She suffered for her love and she put it on a shelf for a long time for something easier." She looked at her dad then, hoping he would understand. When she saw a tiny smile of understanding on his face, she relaxed. "She found good enough and that felt safe and comfortable and for a while it was enough. But the day would come when it wasn't. When she realized good enough wasn't all in. I think what she learned, though, was that love was still hard sometimes and still made you fight for it, but it could also take your breath away with the sweetness and the knowledge that, deep down, it was all you ever wanted and all you ever needed. She told me once, 'do things afraid' because the end result could truly be worth it. She took her own advice and I think she would tell anyone it was worth it. That's the lesson I learned from her that I'll take away now. To do things anyway, even if I'm afraid, because in the end, it's worth it.

"Rayna Jaymes was a lot of things to a lot of people, but to me she was just Mom. I'm so lucky I had her for as long as I did and I hope that everything I do going forward will honor her and please her." She could feel the tears on her face then, but didn't care. "I'll always miss you, Mom," she said, looking over at the casket. "I hope I'll always make you proud."

She looked back over the crowd, then focused on her husband as she walked back to her seat. When she was settled, she smiled at him and then slid her hand into his. He had a question in his eyes, but she just kept smiling, squeezing his hand gently. She was going to do this afraid, because she knew he was worth it.