My prayers to the family.

Shirley's smile will definitely be missed 

I vividly remember the most fun I ever saw Shirley have. It was on May 20, 1998. A Wednesday. We were part of a group of six at Freedom Hall to see Garth Brooks, with Trisha Yearwood as the opener. The newspaper reported they sold out 18,500 tickets. However many of us were there, with everyone on our feet and singing the whole night, anyone who wasn't standing right next to you was a blur. Shirley and I weren't seated beside one another. I think everyone went into the show with one song in mind we hoped to hear. Hers wasn't a Garth Brooks song. She had her hopes up for a Trisha Yearwood song. My memory of it is that it was "She's in Love with the Boy" but I could be wrong about that.

Whatever the song was, she got to hear it. As soon as the band started, Shirley went berserk! I saw her looking around at other people like, "Did you hear that?! She's gonna sing it!" She jumped so much that I could see her in my peripheral vision. I was afraid she might fall onto the row in front of us. But when Yearwood started singing, Shirley was transfixed. There may have been 18,499 other people, but none of us existed. That song was just for Shirley. I could actually hear her voice, and I will remind you we were not next to each other.

It wasn't that she sang louder for that song, though I'm sure she did. It's hard to explain. There was something magical about it. When that song ended, Shirley blended back in with the rest of the crowd. The rest of the night, I had to lean over to see her, and I couldn't make out her voice from anyone else's.

It was my first concert, so I didn't really understand what she had felt... until the next to last song of the night. It was the one I'd most hoped to hear. As soon as it started, I looked around at everyone like, "Did you hear that?! He's gonna sing it!" And once he started singing, I was transfixed and 18,499 other people didn't exist. I don't know if she or anyone else heard my voice above everyone else's. But that was when I got it. That was when I understood what that earlier moment had meant to Shirley, and how she felt. That was when I realized I'd seen pure joy when I'd watched her during her song.

Shirley had some bad breaks over the years, there's no doubt about that. Time and again, her resilience was tested. But I know for a fact that she also experienced magic and joy. You can't really say we shared it, because it was just for her. I got to bear witness, though. Ever since then, the first thing I have thought of whenever I've thought of Shirley has been her jumping and looking around to see if everyone understood what was about to happen. It was even the first thing that came to my mind when I learned that she had passed away. It will always be the first thing that will come to my mind whenever I think of Shirley. But the second thing will be that I hope that wherever she is, she's experiencing joy.