Dear Chris Stapleton

Dear Chris Stapleton,

I’ve never really been a big fan of country or bluegrass music.

So the first time I discovered you was only about five months ago when I saw a video on Facebook of you and Justin Timberlake playing Tennessee Whisky at the CMA awards.

Holy shit. I was obsessed. I think I watched that video about a hundred times.

And I immediately bought that song on iTunes.

That’s when I discovered What Are You Listening To.

And I bought that song, too. Along with the rest of them.

I’m sure you get fan mail (do people send fan mail anymore?) or at least messages and emails from a shitload of people every day telling you how much they love you.

But I’m wondering how many letters you get from people telling you how you got them through the Boston Marathon.

Because on Monday, that’s what you did. But you didn’t just help me on Monday.

You’ve been helping me for the past five months.

You see, I had a little brother who died from leukemia over thirty years ago. He was three when he died and I was sixteen. For about twenty five years I lived not really being able to talk about it or do anything about it. I just existed in denial. Then a few years ago, I started running.

At first it was just to lose the weight I had gained after having kids. Then I discovered that running basically erased the depression I was diagnosed with in my late twenties.

And that eventually led to me running marathons for charity.

I had always wanted to do something to honor my brother. Something to guarantee that he hadn’t died in vain. That something good would come from it.

It took me a long time to find what that thing was. Last year I was able to run the Boston Marathon to raise money for cancer research and treatment. It’s a long story, but it was sort of a miracle that I was chosen.

This year, the same thing happened. I was accepted to run to raise money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute on the thirty year anniversary of my brother’s death after my application was initially rejected.

It was in December of 2015, shortly after I heard you sing for the first time.

I started training in January. I always listen to music when I run, and of course since I had just found you, I was listening to your songs all the time.

That’s when I discovered that What Are You Listening To kept me at the perfect pace for my long runs.

It’s kind of a random song to train to. It’s not like Eye of the Tiger or on any Songs That Get You Really Fucking Pumped to Train playlists.

But it kept me at the perfect pace for me.  And so every single time I went for a run, I listened to that song.

If I had a ten mile run, I listened to What Are You Listening To.

Like twenty-five times in a row.

Literally.

If I had a three and a half hour run, I listened to it, too. A bazillion times.

(I’m weird that way — I ran the entire second half of the Cape Cod Marathon listening to Gordon Lightfoot’s Sundown which my friends still make fun of me for, but come on, that song is classic.)

Anyway, I never got sick of it. To be honest though, I had plans of getting stronger and faster as my training progressed so that I could listen to a different song. A faster one.

(I was going to eventually dump you off for John Denver’s Country Road — again, I know, who runs fucking marathons listening to John Denver and Gordon Lightfoot).

But at the end of February, our house went into foreclosure. I had to devote a lot of time to finding a way to keep the house, and it completely derailed me from the training plan, and ultimately that meant I went into the Boston Marathon on Monday not half as prepared as I needed to be. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to finish.

For real.

It was going to be nothing short of miraculous if I was able to run the whole thing.

I had two things keeping me going.

My brother, and you.

The only thing I knew to do was listen to you, just as I had for the previous five months.

I made a playlist of fifty songs.

And every single one was What Are You Listening To.

Ha! I ran twenty six miles listening to you sing the same song over and over again.

I’m a big believer in moving outside of your comfort zone.

I was uncomfortable so many times on Monday. But listening to you gave me comfort in an uncomfortable time. You kept me steady. You kept me moving.

I still don’t know who you are talking to in that song. And I know it’s not really an upbeat, LET’S KICK SOME ASS! song.

But it ended up being one for me.

I don’t know if you ever found out what she was listening to.

But I wanted you to know what I was listening to.

I made it across the finish line, I honored my little brother, I raised money to hopefully stop other families from going through what mine went through because I put that record on.

And I let play again and again.

And I just wanted to say thank you.

 

Sincerely,

A New, Grateful, and Lifelong Fan

 

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