WILLIE NELSON - Unchained Melody

I'm 44 years old, feeling frumpy and fractious, fearing fifty. About-to-be-five-year-old Raleigh is being her fairy-princess-self, demanding pink clothes to wear to the party we're going to attend. Harvey's fellow teachers are having a back-to-school get-together, and I dread it. We've just moved into our house; nothing is unpacked, nothing is completely painted, and nothing is organized; I just want to go to sleep. Lupus has its teeth deep in my bones, and I feel my IQ drop as much as my eyelids.

When we get to the party, I feel so ugly, so old. All these brand-new-23-year-old teachers in their short shorts--and me in a droopy gauze skirt and the only t-shirt I own that doesn't have paint on it. And, to top it off, there's karaoke. Karaoke!

Then Harvey--who never sings except at church or at family reunions--ambles over to the karaoke machine and picks out a song--this one. And he sings it perfectly--the Everly Brothers/Roy Orbison version--and he hits all the high notes and he looks at me the whole time he is singing and everyone in the room is looking at him and then at me and murmuring because it is awesome, it is the loveliest that he has ever sung, and it is all for me. I am aware that right that very second, in sickness and in poor health, that I am the most beautiful I will ever be in my life, because I am being seen by someone who loves me, who knows me, who I realize for the first time in 15 years will never ever leave me, who I realize will always love me till the day he dies.

And he did. And I do. And I thank Willie Nelson for singing this song with nearly as much tenderness as Harvey did.