I knew her when she was a kid,
remember when she and her brother won
the 4H Share the Fun competition
in McAlester,
her voice,
his upside down guitar.
They could sure put on
a show.
My three octave range
didn’t stand a chance.

It’s the show that matters.
That was my first lesson.

In high school, senior year
singing with a rock band turned country
for 4-H,
pretending to be Kitty Wells
on the Grand Ole Opry stage,
my friends and I went all the way to state,
sang in front of a crowd
at the Iba Arena.

When we got offered a summer gig,
the six of us,
Dad put his foot down.
His daughter wasn’t going to be
a country singer.

I put my foot down, too.
I wasn’t going to be a gospel singer,
the path he envisioned for me.
Our relationship was fractious,
And I somehow found the courage
to choose my own path.
I didn’t become famous,
but I still make music.
And I am still learning lessons.

One lesson has stayed with me,
Learned at the end of a show in Stillwater,
not long after her original band
died in a plane crash.
I shared
a few words with her,
saw the fatigue
understood the hard work,
the dedication,
the singular focus it takes
to be a star, still

I’d joke
or poke at a sore place in me,
that every time I sold a story,
a poem,
a feature in a magazine,
she’d made it to the pages
or the cover,
first.

But on that night,
I went home to my kiddos,
my four-year-old son,
my infant daughter,
and knew I’d made the right choice for myself,
and that she had earned,
had paid for, every accolade.

This year, in a book of Oklahoma poetry,
I’m proud to be included.
She’s there, too,
and we both deserve our place
on the page.