Hello, Friend.
In my first blog, I wrote about where some songs come from. How ideas sometimes find us, rather than the other way around. How they seem to exist somewhere in the ether, just waiting for someone to reach up and pluck them from the tree of ideas.
“Never Lost” is a testament to that very thesis.
When I decided to call this blog Songs, Stories & Curious Hauntings, I did so for a reason.
I chose the word hauntings because, to me, it describes the creative experience better than almost anything else.
Sometimes, as a creative, you're haunted by an idea for days, weeks, or years. Sometimes for decades.
Or, in this case, an entire lifetime.
Not haunted in the eerie or macabre sense. Not some ghostly apparition whispering ominously from the other side of the room. Although that would certainly make for an interesting songwriting session, that's not what I mean.
No, I'm talking about something that follows you. A thought, a feeling, a few words, a melody. Something that lingers in the back of your mind, patiently waiting for its moment. Waiting to find purpose and meaning.
Sometimes we know what to do with these things. Sometimes we don't. And sometimes, we carry them for so long that we may not even realize how much they mean to us until something happens that brings their meaning into focus.
In this particular case, what lingered was something more than a creative idea. It was an expression of faith. A divine promise carried through the seasons of a life.
And that life belonged to my cousin, Erin Patton.
Now, before I tell you about the song, I need to tell you a little about Erin.
Because, boy, was she something else!
The way I was introduced to Erin was not face-to-face. In fact, I never had the privilege of meeting my beautiful cousin in person.
I wish we had been given that opportunity.
But we talked through social media and phone calls, and quite often I heard from her vicariously through Dad, who relayed more than a few chastisements from Erin about why I wasn't out playing live music like I should have been these last few years.
She was not shy about expressing her opinions.
Not even a little.
My wife and kids were leaving with my in-laws to visit a university in Arizona. While they were boarding the plane, my wife's phone started ringing.
And wouldn't stop.
A Facebook call from Erin.
Meanwhile, my phone had been ringing with calls from a number I didn't recognize, so naturally, I didn't answer it.
That changed when I got a call from my wife, just before takeoff, telling me to answer my gosh-darn phone.
And that, in fact, was how I received my first phone call from Erin.
A woman claiming to be my cousin, informing me that she wanted me to open for ZZ Top.
Oh, and she also wanted me to write a song for her birthday.
Naturally.
Now, I should mention that I had COVID at the time, which is why I had stayed home.
And I was feeling particularly awful.
So, when this woman called me out of the blue, enthusiastically discussing the possibility of my opening for one of the most iconic rock bands in history, I wasn't entirely certain whether she was real or some elaborate fever dream brought on by the aforementioned COVID.
Either way, she was relentless.
She was convinced that opening for ZZ Top would open all sorts of doors for me.
COVID?
A minor inconvenience.
She was certain I'd be fine.
And while we were at it, how difficult could it possibly be for me to write a song for her birthday?
I mean, what else did I have going on?
I was only fighting off a virus, after all. Nothing major.
This story makes me smile now more than ever.
Because that was Erin.
Unabashedly herself.
Enthusiastic. Passionate. Optimistic.
And absolutely certain that the people she believed in were capable of more than they probably believed themselves.
Her support of my music was something else entirely. Aside from my wife, parents, and kids, she was one of my biggest advocates.
And I will forever be grateful for that.
Which brings me to April 13, 2026.
Earlier this year, Dad received a phone call from Erin. During their conversation, she mentioned an idea she'd carried with her ever since she was a little girl.
Think about that for a moment.
Something that had lived in her imagination since childhood. Something she had carried through the years, through all the changes and seasons of her life.
And on this particular day, she decided it was time to do something with it.
She told Dad, rather matter-of-factly:
"Write this down."
Now, Dad happened to be out in his shop, and the only thing he could find to write on was a bubble mailer envelope.
Yes.
An old bubble mailer.
You're probably thinking, Why not just go grab a piece of paper?
Well, because when Erin had an idea, there was a certain sense of urgency about it.
Her excitement, enthusiasm, and straight-up energy were such that Dad needed to write it down right then and there.
Besides, reaching for the closest thing at hand to put pen to paper is about the most accurate representation of a true artist I can imagine.
Napkins. Receipts. The backs of envelopes.
Whatever is available.
When inspiration comes knocking, you don't exactly tell it to hang on while you go find your good journal.
And I am fairly certain—actually, I am 100% certain—that Erin would have loved the fact that her idea was first committed to an old bubble mailer.
There is something wonderfully appropriate about that.
An idea that had traveled with her for so many years was finally written down on something originally intended to carry something else.
So Dad grabbed his pen and began writing.
Erin told him she thought her idea should become a song. Dad took what she had given him, expanded upon it, and eventually sent it to me.
I added a few words, changed a few others, and put music to it.
And now, in the interest of full transparency, I have to tell you something…
I didn't think much of the song at first.
Honestly, I sort of glossed over it. Completed it and moved on.
There.
I said it.
I wasn't particularly inspired by the project. I didn't spend countless hours poring over every word, searching for some hidden meaning or divine revelation.
After all, it wasn't I who had been inspired. I was merely a vessel for melody and tones.
I more or less went through the motions.
I did what I was asked to do, finished the song, and moved on to whatever had currently piqued my interest.
Which, knowing me, could have been any number of things…
Now, don't misunderstand me. I didn't dislike the song. I simply didn't recognize anything particularly extraordinary about it at the time.
That divine inspiration hadn't hit me.
Yet.
To me, it was another song from Dad, this one inspired by Erin.
But to Erin?
It was something else.
She loved it.
Of course, that made Dad and me happy.
So that was that. The song was written, Erin was pleased, and I didn't think much more about it.
Until August.
Sadly, Erin passed away in August of 2026, at just 46 years old.
And suddenly, everything changed.
Four months after that phone call, I found myself revisiting her idea.
Her words.
Dad's words.
My words.
The music.
All of it.
This thing I had so casually finished and moved on from was now resonating with me in a way it hadn't before.
The song hadn't changed.
Not a word.
Not a note.
But something about the way I heard it had.
I began thinking about that phone call. About Dad standing in his shop, scribbling on an old bubble mailer. About Erin's excitement. About how long she'd carried those words with her.
Most of a lifetime is a long time to carry an idea around with you.
And I thought about how little attention I had given the whole thing.
I regret that.
I regret not looking more closely at what we were creating while the process was happening in real time.
Not because I think I could have written a better song.
But because I wish I'd understood what I was being invited to take part in.
Here was a woman who had carried this idea in her heart since childhood, and she wanted to share it with us.
She believed in it.
She believed in Dad.
She believed in me.
And while I was busy moving on to the next thing, she was celebrating something that had finally found its way out of her imagination and into the world.
I didn't fully appreciate that at the time.
I do now.
What began as a little girl's idea, carried through the years, eventually became a song that, in a way, became her eulogy.
“Never Lost” was played at Erin's service.
I still find that extraordinary.
Words she'd carried for so much of her life were now being heard by the people who had gathered to remember her.
A little piece of her heart, her imagination, and her faith had become something they could listen to.
Something that would remain.
And it all began with a phone call, a pen, and an old bubble mailer.
Funny how something so ordinary can become so meaningful.
But to understand why this song means what it does, you need to understand the words Erin gave us.
I want to share her original poem.
These are her words:
For when is it that we wake up
As a child from climbing trees
That we only desire to become
The sum of our habits
What are you teaching me-
What am I Learning?
It's valleys they say bring me
Closer to you.
This pain lasts forever, this
Hurt reappears.
Your promise I remember,
Your strength I will take.
As you take care of the sparrow,
So you take care of me.
There is a great deal contained in those few lines.
Questions about growing older. About the habits we develop, the things we learn, and the pain we carry. About what suffering teaches us.
And about remembering a promise when life becomes difficult.
But it's those final two lines that really stay with me.
As you take care of the sparrow,
So you take care of me.
In our completed song, the chorus became:
You care for the sparrow
You see me too
Even when I feel forgotten
I'm Never lost to You
When my faith is so small
Each tear that falls
Pulls me closer to You
That notion—that God takes care of something as teensy as a sparrow, yet still sees us—is a beautiful reminder that when life feels out of control, when we're hurting, or when we seem to be at our lowest, He is still there.
We are never lost to Him.
Not even when we feel forgotten.
And the more I think about those words, especially knowing what I know now, the more profound they become.
There's one line in particular that keeps coming back to me.
When my faith is so small…
Those words were written by Dad.
And at the time, I didn't give them nearly the consideration they deserved.
But now?
Now they get me thinking.
If you know anything about faith, you've probably heard the biblical passage about faith the size of a mustard seed being able to move mountains.
I've always loved that image.
Because a mustard seed is tiny.
Generally only about one or two millimeters in diameter.
Consider the absurdity of that comparison.
On one side, you have a seed so small you could easily lose it between your fingers.
On the other, an entire mountain.
Thousands upon thousands of tons of rock and earth, towering majestically over the landscape.
And we're talking about moving that mountain with something so small its weight barely registers in the palm of your hand.
Now, I'm no physicist, but I'm fairly certain you could throw mustard seeds at a mountain until the cows come home, and that mountain wouldn't budge an inch.
You might season it pretty well.
But you wouldn't move it.
Of course, that's the point.
The power isn't in the seed itself.
The power is in God.
The mustard seed is an illustration of how even the smallest faith can accomplish extraordinary things when the power behind that faith is immeasurably greater than our own.
And that's where Dad's line becomes so meaningful to me.
When my faith is so small…
How often do we find ourselves there?
How often does life wear us down to the point that our faith seems insignificant?
We pray.
We hope.
We believe.
But sometimes, if we're being completely honest, we struggle.
We question.
We wonder whether we're being heard.
And then we're reminded of something as small as a mustard seed.
Not because we're supposed to measure our faith against some microscopic standard, but because even the smallest measure of genuine faith points toward a God whose power is not limited by our own.
And the sparrow?
Well, that brings the whole thing full circle.
In Matthew 10, Jesus speaks of sparrows, creatures of seemingly little earthly value, and reminds us that not one falls apart from the Father's knowledge.
Then He tells us not to be afraid.
We are worth more than many sparrows.
Think about that.
Something so small.
Something so easily overlooked.
Yet never forgotten.
The sparrow reminds us that we are seen.
The mustard seed reminds us that small faith is not insignificant.
And Erin's words bring those two ideas together in a way I didn't fully appreciate until after she was gone.
Which leads me back to something else.
Erin had faith in God.
That much is apparent in her words.
But she also had an extraordinary amount of faith in the people around her.
Including me.
Remember that ridiculous phone call about ZZ Top?
Here I was, sick with COVID, wondering whether the woman on the phone was real, and she was already planning the next big step in my musical career.
She didn't seem particularly concerned about whether I thought I could do it.
She believed I could.
And when she decided her childhood idea should become a song, she believed we could do that, too.
Dad took her words seriously enough to write them down. I helped turn them into music, even though I didn't initially see what she saw in them.
And Erin loved what we'd created.
It wasn't my faith in the song that carried the idea forward.
It was hers.
There's something about that realization that has stayed with me.
The woman who believed in me and my music so enthusiastically had given me an opportunity to help her share something deeply personal.
And I nearly overlooked the significance of it.
Not the song itself.
The significance.
The privilege of being part of something she had carried for so long.
I suppose that's part of being human.
The forest for the trees, as it were.
We're so busy living our lives that we seldom recognize the moments we'll one day look back on with extraordinary clarity and realize the divine intervention taking place in real time.
Sometimes the little things turn out to be the big things.
Sometimes an ordinary conversation becomes a treasured memory.
Sometimes a few words scribbled on the back of an envelope become something no one could have anticipated.
And sometimes a song means something entirely different after the person who inspired it is gone.
I don't know why Erin carried those words for so many years before deciding to share them that April afternoon.
I don't know why that particular day was the day she told Dad to write them down.
And I certainly don't claim to understand all the mysterious ways in which God works.
But I'm grateful she made that call.
I'm grateful Dad had a pen.
And I'm particularly grateful he had an old bubble mailer lying around.
Because something that might otherwise have remained only in Erin's imagination found its way into the world.
And now, it remains.
I think about how that envelope was made to carry something from one place to another.
And in a strange, wonderfully appropriate way, that's exactly what it did.
It carried the beginning of a song.
A song that carried Erin's words.
Words that carried her faith.
And a faith that, even in the midst of pain and uncertainty, held tightly to a simple promise.
You care for the sparrow.
You see me too.
That's what I hear now when I listen to “Never Lost.”
I hear Dad's words.
I hear my music.
But most of all, I hear Erin.
That enthusiastic, unabashedly optimistic woman who believed I ought to be opening for ZZ Top and writing birthday songs while fighting off COVID.
The woman I never had the privilege of meeting face-to-face.
The woman who carried a little girl's idea through the seasons of her life until it finally became a song.
Her song.
I wish I'd understood its significance sooner.
But I'm grateful I understand it now.
And perhaps that's the curious thing about hauntings.
Sometimes the things that stay with us are there to remind us.
Maybe of someone we loved.
Of something we almost overlooked.
Of the extraordinary significance hidden within the most ordinary moments.
And of the simple promise that, no matter how small we may feel, no matter how uncertain our faith becomes, we are never lost.
Especially to the One who cares for the sparrow.
Share her words, share her faith, and please share her song.
Share her words, share her faith, and please share her song. - Erin's Song