It's All About Him (4 page)

It wasn't exactly a big watershed moment or a word of prophecy . . . but since Alan's daddy rarely spoke, let alone gave career direction,Alan remembers that comment to this day.He says it planted a small seed, one that grew into a big dream inside of him.

In between all his odd jobs, Alan partnered with a friend, Eddie Norton, who played guitar, and they started singing at events around town. When he was sixteen, Alan's parents gave him a guitar, and he taught himself to play approximately four chords, which was just about all he needed at the time.

More and more people began to notice his rich, unusual singing voice. Friends started asking him to sing at parties and weddings. Eventually a man named Cody Deal heard Alan sing at a wedding and asked him to join a band he was forming. So Alan became the lead singer for “Dixie Steel,” named after a box of nails found in the basement where they practiced. They played around Newnan and Atlanta for several years, even coming in second place at the infamous Marlboro Country Music contest sponsored by an Atlanta radio station.

Young Love

Meanwhile, when Alan and I look back today, it's hard to remember our dating life. All we know is that there is absolutely no way we would want our three daughters to date and get serious and marry at such a young age. Alan says that maybe they can date when they're about thirty or so . . . but back in the distant mists of our own youth, we fell in love when we were just teenagers, as little as we knew what love was about.

Years later, after Alan had achieved superstar status in the country music world, we were interviewed by
Life
magazine for a cover story on celebrity marriages that had endured over decades. I was thrilled, because we were to be featured with heads of state and political leaders, as well as other entertainers. When the magazine was published, there we were with dignified couples like King Hussein and Queen Noor of Jordan, President George H. W. and Barbara Bush, Vice President Al and Tipper Gore, and
60 Minutes
journalist Mike Wallace and his wife, Mary.

I was feeling good, excited about being in such distinguished company . . . until I looked at Alan's quote that the magazine had chosen to use as the bold headline for our interview. Alan had been asked what initially drew us together and sparked our grand love story. He had responded, “I just wanted to get into her britches.” (This is
not
what George Bush had said about Barbara!)

I don't think that I will
ever
fully recover from reading that quote. But at any rate, his remark reminds me what a miracle it is that our love grew and matured over the years, because we were so young when it began. And because of that, we inadvertently started some unhealthy habits early on in our dating life.

Because Alan was such a provider, he took on a kind of father role for me. If you ask him today about our early years, he'll say that he half-raised me. I don't know if that's quite true—or maybe it's just half-true—but he was certainly the decision maker in our relationship in terms of making plans, buying cars, eventually paying for my college education, leading any adult aspect in our relationship. I gladly handed such things over, because I felt like Alan was much more experienced and confident than I was. But this uneven dynamic would create problems years later.

For my part, maybe as a reaction, I didn't want him to be too sure of me. So I'd try to keep him a little off balance. In high school I acted very high-schoolish, breaking things off with Alan every once in a while and dating the quarterback to make Alan jealous. Then he'd show up at football games with a date, and I'd have to face the stands, cheering for the crowd, watching Alan with some other girl. He always found some way to impress me and get me back . . . and then he'd do whatever he could to make
me
feel insecure.

To use today's psychological terms, I think the word to describe it would be
codependency
. We attempted to meet some of our needs in ways that weren't healthy, mature, or mutually satisfying. There was a certain “relationship addiction” for me in particular. As the years went by, I needed Alan in order to feel good about myself, in the same way that people who are addicted to alcohol have to have a drink in order to face their day.

So, woven in the tapestry of our love story, there were some dark threads that would get knotted later on. There were also many bright threads, sweet times, and shared hearts. And early on in our relationship, Alan's strength and love bolstered me through the hardest time I'd yet known.

Chapter 4
SHOCK

I need some sunshine on my face
To help me dry my eyes
I need a blue sky over head
So I can clear my mind

Alan Jackson, “Rainy Day in June”

I
t was Valentine's Day, 1977. I was at a friend's house when I got the phone call. My twin brother, Danny, sixteen years old, had been riding his Honda 125 motorcycle, his blond hair blowing back in the cold wind. He didn't have his helmet on. He was less than a quarter mile from our house when a young driver approached from the other direction. The driver was traveling west; blinded by the setting sun, he turned and never saw Danny on his motorcycle until he hit him.

Danny had no time to react. The car crashed into his left side, knocking him off the motorcycle and up into the windshield of the car, over its hood, and into the ditch at the side of the road. Still conscious, he was in so much pain he wished he was dead.

My Twin Brother

Danny and I had spent all our growing-up moments together. I was a classic tomboy when we were young, wrestling and running with my twin brother everywhere we went. We'd ride bikes with no hands, seeing who could beat the other. We played football with the neighborhood boys, climbed trees, and rode our Honda cycles all over the front and back yards. Daddy would take us to his little pond in the country, where we'd fish and skip rocks on the surface of the water.

As we got older, I resigned myself to being a girl, and our interests diverged. But we still had that inexplicable closeness of twins, and now that Danny just might die,my brain could barely take it in.

My mother and daddy were already heading to the hospital. I called Alan, and he came to get me.

My older sister, Jane, was living in Carrollton, about thirty miles west of Newnan. Alan and I called her and told her that we were on our way over. We made it to Carrollton in record time. When we got out of Alan's car, he held me up as we walked to Jane's door. Jane and I held each other, crying. The teakettle, left boiling, whistled on the stove. Alan went into Jane's bedroom, grabbed a suitcase out of the closet, and started packing it with clothes, makeup, and toiletries.

We threw ourselves into the car. By the time we arrived at Newnan Hospital, the ambulance had left again. The Newnan doctor had told my parents that the only thing they could do was amputate Danny's leg. It was too mangled to save, held together only by a thin piece of skin. Our older brother, Ron, insisted that they transport Danny to a larger hospital in Atlanta. Maybe more could be done for him there.

We took off for Atlanta. When we finally got there, Danny was lying on a gurney in the emergency room. He had been given morphine for his pain, and was drifting in and out of consciousness. He told us not to look at his injuries, but we couldn't help it. His hand was the size of a basketball, every bone crushed. His leg was bloody and mangled, with a piece of bone sticking out.

WITH MY TWIN BROTHER NEAR DEATH, BROKEN AND BLOODY, I WAS SHAKEN TO MY CORE. I PRAYED LIKE I'D NEVER PRAYED BEFORE, ASK-ING GOD TO SAVE DANNY'S LEG AND HIS LIFE.

Danny went into surgery, and my parents made us all go home. They knew it would be many hours before we had any news . . . and perhaps they wanted to protect us from what might happen.

Thankfully, Danny made it through surgery. But his battle had just begun. The next few weeks and months were a blur for us, and excruciating for Danny.

If I was a golden girl, Danny had been the masculine version of the same thing. A football player who was quite popular, he always had a girlfriend and had an energetic, happy-go-lucky personality. At the time we didn't know that the accident would change his life's direction.

Danny's accident was the first time I'd been confronted with trauma and crisis. I had prayed all my life, and accepted Jesus as my Savior at age twelve. I had gone to Sunday school as long as I could remember, and I knew all the right answers about life and death and heaven. But with my twin brother near death, broken and bloody, I was shaken to my core. I prayed like I'd never prayed before, asking God to save Danny's leg and his life.

To Walk Again

During the two months Danny was in the hospital, Alan drove my mother and me to Atlanta every day. Mama wasn't comfortable with the traffic there, and Alan took over the driver's seat for her. It was his natural place for all of us. Even though he was young and we had dated less than a year, Alan was the type of person who took care of everyone else.

After sixty-three days of lying flat on his back in traction in a hospital bed, Danny finally came home. His leg was saved. Gradually, he learned to walk again. But the accident crushed his spirit more than his legs. He couldn't go back to football or the rosy future he'd always assumed he'd have. As he would be the first to say all these years later, he chose a path that spiraled downward. Though he eventually overcame this way of life, his despair after the accident pulled him toward bad choices, unhealthy friendships, and failed relationships
.

My relationship with Danny had always been a source of strength and security. My twin was part of who I was. But as the months and years went by, particularly after the trauma of Danny's accident and the shock waves it sent through my family, Alan became my all in all. My friendships with other girls dropped away. My family no longer seemed invincible, like my image of Alan. Bit by bit, my life and thoughts focused on one thing. Alan: it was all about him.

Chapter 5
SURPRISES

Remember when we vowed the vows
and walked the walk
Gave our hearts, made the start, it was hard

Alan Jackson, “Remember When”

O
ver the next few years, whenever Alan and I were out in his little Thunderbird convertible, people told us we looked like a dream couple. In fact, a local store used the car—and us—as models for an advertising campaign. Today I look at that faded black-and-white photograph, and it makes me smile. Both of us look so young and eager, driving toward a future we couldn't yet see.

We were each other's first true love, but we had never talked about marriage. We were too young.

On Christmas Eve my freshman year of college, we were at my mother and daddy's house, sitting on the sofa next to the Christmas tree. Alan handed me a beautifully wrapped gift a little smaller than a shoe box. I smiled; I never knew quite what to expect from him. One Valentine's Day he had given me a powder blue car fender—romantically wrapped with a big red bow—to replace the fender that had been crumpled when my VW bug was attacked by an angry cow.

But this box was too small to hold any major car parts. I carefully opened it. Inside was another wrapped box. Alan grinned as I opened it. Inside was a smaller package. Then there was another. And another. The last one was a small, black velvet box.

Oh, that's so sweet,
I thought.
It must be a necklace.

I eased open the velvet lid. Inside was a gleaming, perfect, half-carat diamond solitaire. I stopped breathing.

“Denise,” Alan said softly, “will you marry me?”

I could not speak. I was shocked. I was too young. Too afraid. Too breathless.

“Well,” Alan said, sensing that maybe things weren't going quite according to his plan, “you don't have to tell me now . . .”

MY DAD GAVE HIS BLESSING IN A PRETTY LOW-KEY WAY, REPEATING TO ALAN WHAT MY MOTHER'S FATHER HAD SAID TO HIM MANY YEARS BEFORE: “YES, ALAN, YOU CAN HAVE DENISE'S HAND IN MARRIAGE . . . BUT IF YOU EVER GET TIRED OF HER, JUST BRING HER BACK!”