Love, me.

I read a note my grandma wrote back in nineteen twenty-three.

Grandpa kept it in his coat, and he showed it once to me. He said,

"Boy, you might not understand, but a long, long time ago,

Grandma's daddy didn't like me none, but I loved your Grandma so."

We had this crazy plan to meet and run away together.

Get married in the first town we came to, and live forever.

But nailed to the tree where we were supposed to meet, instead

Of her, I found this letter, and this is what it said:

If you get there before I do, don't give up on me.

I'll meet you when my chores are through;

I don't know how long I'll be.

But I'm not gonna let you down, darling wait and see.

And between now and then, till I see you again,

I'll be loving you. Love, me.

I read those words just hours before my Grandma passed away,

In the doorway of a church where me and Grandpa stopped to pray.

I know I'd never seen him cry in all my fifteen years;

But as he said these words to her, his eyes filled up with tears.

If you get there before I do, don't give up on me.

I'll meet you when my chores are through;

I don't know how long I'll be.

But I'm not gonna let you down, darling wait and see.

And between now and then, till I see you again,

I'll be loving you. Love, me.

Between now and then, till I see you again,

I'll be loving you. Love, me.

"A lot of writers will say, 'Oh, I wrote this song in 10 minutes.' Well, I might respectfully disagree with that. I've never met someone who wrote a song in 10 minutes. And what I mean is that our brains, for years, are working with songs, listening to songs, feeling the ways that things go together, and what we've thought, the way we've loved, everything is a part of the song we're writing right now. I like to say the past is always a part of the present."

I cry every single time I listen to this song.