momma’s eyes
Have you ever seen someone so desperately in love that it drives them to absolutely ridiculous measures? It is a thing of imbalanced teenage girls
. . . and the God of the Jews.
Hank Shepherd wrote a song that made him famous. When he was only 21 “Momma’s Eyes” Swept the charts and the hearts of the Country-western world. Until she died his mother had raised him on honesty, hard work, and faithfulness. And that was what he was known for. Everybody knew of his vow to purity until marriage and his unusual respect with which he treated women. when the girls offered themselves to him after each show, he passed out a rose and a kiss on the cheek to each before he dissapeared into his trailer to work on his music. when they asked him why was he so different, he always said something like, “there was just something special I saw in my momma’s eyes.”
He said she taught him everything it is to be a real man, but the main thing he remembered from his mother was her patient endurance through a multitude of abusive men, all because she wanted him to have a father. She had been used, abused and dumped over and over. And it had all been for him.
So you can see why it baffled everyone when Hank proposed. The tabloids made their millions but not one country-western heart was happy to hear that the impeccable gentleman, Hank Shepherd proposed to a smoking, drinking, loud mouthed bar whore who lived with her alcoholic grandmother.
He said it was love at first sight- even if she WAS drunk when he passed her at a small town country festival. And she said that she had hardly noticed him. She didn’t know who he was. In fact she still says she doesn’t really like country music.
The engagement was quick. He proposed to her on his mother’s birthday on top of a ferris wheel with a song that eventually raced up the charts as well. He courted her in the old fashioned way and insisted on nothing more than a kiss before they parted each night. Although SHE usually went back to the bar after that.
And they married.
Hank was crazy about her. but it was very hard. His ensuing album was heavy and morose. Deep, powerful songs of unrequited love. He never exactly suggested it in the songs, but everyone knew the sad truth. She was not being faithful. Every young cowgirl cursed her name whenever Hank’s songs played.
Hank stopped eating. He would take no advice if it told him to drop or disrespect his wife. He became a hermit. Waiting day and night for his beloved wife to come home. he wrote song after song that he would play to her to try to win her back- when she would listen. When she did stop to listen to a song he begged to play for her, she usually responded with “It sounds alright. But you know I don’t really like the sound of country.”
Every song that Hank wrote grew better than the last because of his ceasleass ache for his wife’s love. Hank’s albums filled the airwaves with a love that built strong marriages by breaking hearts. Couples vowed to be faithful to each other as they sat in old pickup trucks listening to Hank’s heart slowly breaking. Men sang the songs of his uncompromising undying love to their wives on their wedding days. Every one knew that to love like Hank meant forever.
Hank’s love was undying. but his body was not.
Cowboys left their tractors in the fields and their wives waited for them on porches on the day Hank’s body was found, bent over his guitar, fingers stiff on the love-sick A minor chord.
The lyrics of his last and final love song were weakly scribbled on a shred of wrapping paper found resting on his knee. it answered the question everyone had asked from the beginning- ‘why did he love her so much?’ The lyrics read:
So long i’ve sought the weary sound
so desperate my guitar it tries
to reach the one girl i found
who has my momma’s eyes
Sometimes i think i can hear the love sick chords that drove the God of the Jews to desperate measures. the ridiculous love that allowed itself to be hurt over and over for an unworthy bride, until it led to a lonely, love sick death- hung up on a spike of wood on a hill for everyone to see. Jesus loved us to death- all because he sees his beloved father’s image in us, and because he just wants us to have a father again.
But we have our own excuses that keep us from listening to the song. Like Hank’s wife, we say we just don’t much like the sound of Country. We totally miss the ubiquitous message of unrequited love- all because we don’t really like the culture of the people listening to the music. we miss the eternal, aching love song of the creator for his beloved created, just because we don’t really like the sound. . .
. . . of religion.