Diana's Petals by Virginia Essary

She didn’t want to die, but she knew she could not go on as sick as she was. I played a tape of gospel songs she had been given. I slept a few minutes here and there. The nurse finally told me to call the family as it neared 5:00 AM. My wife came, stopping to pick up my Grandma, Mama’s mama. My step father, my mother’s husband, came. As Mama’s breathing slowed I watched the woman I had admired all my life. She was slipping away. She gasped, stopped breathing, and then gasped again. She stopped breathing again, and then took what would be her final breath. I had never witnessed another human being die before. This was my Mama. I felt so good to have been with her during her last hours. Just as she had brought me into this world, a kicking screaming crying baby, I had watched her leave, quietly, peacefully. I will always miss her kindness and love, her gentle sweet disposition. The memories are many and they are almost all good.

I grieved alone. No one saw me cry. But I did, often, the first two years after Mama died.

I admired Diana, Princess of Wales. When she died suddenly, I felt horrible, especially for her 2 sons. As a son grieving for my mother, I knew they were experiencing a much greater shock and sense of loss over the loss of their mother, because she was gone so quickly and unexpectedly. And they were young. I was 40 years old when my mother died. I have two sons, ages 22 and 25. They are same ages as Princes Harry and William. I reasoned that losing one’s mother when one is still a child must be very traumatic. And so I began to write a poem about the Princess. I heard the news reports about Diana being the Rose of England, and Queen of hearts, and I wrote about it in a brief poem.

Next, I remembered a song I wrote ten years earlier. The song was titled “Where Did My Money Go? I wrote it in the aftermath of the stock market crash of 1987. It went “Broker, Broker, where did my money go? I gambled on the Dow and lost all my dough.” I recorded “Where Did My Money Go?” on analog tape in the basement studio of Ephraim Vasquez in Chicago, Illinois. There were 8 tracks. I sang lead vocal.

As I thought back 10 years to 1987, I decided to try the words of “Diana’s Petals”, as I had named the poem, with the music of “Where Did My Money Go?” I was surprised at how well the two fit. Suddenly, I had an idea. I was going to record “Diana’s Petals” using the 10 year old analog tape with the music from “Where Did My Money Go?” I was going to overdub the vocals, replacing my vocals with – Virginia Essary’s vocals. The same highly capable singer who had sang “My Mother’s Love” would be asked to sing “Diana’s Petals”. I called John Hall at his home recording studio, and I called Virginia. Both said sure, let’s give it a try. So I loaded the big reel of analog tape into the car and took it to John Hall.

It was Wednesday, September 3, 1997. The Princess had been dead 3 days. The world was in shock. Funeral plans were being divulged. Elton John was writing a special song to sing at the funeral. And in Northport, Alabama at John Hall’s Recording Studio a new song was about to be recorded memorializing Diana, Princess of Wales. The local news outlet, NBC13 News, was invited to the studio. We recorded “Diana’s Petals” and NBC 13 featured a segment on the recording on their 10:00 PM news. The old music with the new lyrics was updated on several tracks by John Hall. The drums were re-recorded, as were all the vocals. Strings were added. But the basic underlying music score remained the same.

20 years after that first recording in 1987, and ten years after the recording of “Diana’s Petals”, Diana’s Petals is being re-released. The song did not get any radio air play in 1997 because the sentiment of Radio stations was that Elton John’s song would be the song that memorialized Diana, so Candle in the Wind became the best selling CD single in history.

I hope that “Diana’s Petals” will get a chance to be heard during this time of remembering the Princess. I hope you like it. I hope it enhances the celebration of the life of Diana, Princess of Wales.

A portion of the proceeds from "Diana's Petals" will benefit the students of the Public Schools of Perry County, Alabama.

Virginia Essary lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Eulas Kirtdoll writes songs in his spare time. He is a supervisor at a manufacturing plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He is also a school board member in Perry County, Alabama, and the Pastor of First Congregational Church of Marion, Alabama.

Contact Eulas Kirtdoll and Virginia Essary at:

Kirtdoll Records

Eulas Kirtdoll Sr. Owner

Route 1 Box 713

Newbern, Alabama 36765

334-624-5382 home/office

334-507-0980 cell

E-mail: ekirtdoll@bellsouth.net

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