This has been a tough week for our friend Carri Palmer and her whole family.  Last week was the funeral of her grandfather Nauta- and the very morning of Cliff’s funeral,  grandmother Nauta also passed away.  (Velma had been in the hospital and was not doing well.)  So it was loss piled upon loss.

Carri and her son Aaron had a really beautiful final meeting with her grandmother in which Velma talked not only about Cliff’s upcoming funeral but also her own.  Her most fervent wish was that Aaron sing something for the reception – and in that quiet little hospital room, Aaron told his great-grand- mother that he thought he could probably do it if he didn’t have to look at anyone – and if Greg Berg could do it with him. Velma thought that would be great and I think she fell asleep that night smiling at the thought of her handsome and talented great-grandson singing to honor her memory- even if she was also grieving a bit for all she would not live to see in the lives of Aaron and Scott and her other great- grandchildren.

I’m not sure how it happened, but by the time Carri spoke to me about all this – and I’m pretty sure it was at the reception after Cliff’s funeral – they had already chosen the song that Aaron would sing. . . “Mercy and Love” by yours truly.  Aaron knows a number of my songs from having listened a lot to my “God gives me Wings” CD-  and he and I have actually had the pleasure of singing this together at each other’s churches.   Aaron even had the pleasure of meeting Trevor,  for whom I wrote the song and who sings it so beautifully on the CD, and I think the song means a lot to Aaron for that reason- and also because Aaron has had a health scare in his young life which makes him better appreciate the story of Jesus healing the ten lepers (which is the basis of the song.)

Anyway,  Aaron and I did indeed sing Mercy and Love for the reception at Fountain Hills (where the Nautas lived) –  and he sang so strongly and beautifully and as well as I have ever heard him sing.  And people listened so lovingly, so attentively,  and with such admiration.  It was one of those supremely tender moments when the whole rest of the world comes to a halt, as though nothing else is happening anywhere except this young boy singing to fulfill his great- grandmother’s last wish.   What a privilege for all of us to be there- and what a special privilege for me to make music with my young friend Aaron.  May there be many many more such times to come.

pictured above:  Aaron and I singing “Mercy and Love” in the common room at Fountain Hills- Monday, July 16th, 2007.