When I kicked off my Hope of Christmas Tour 2012 in Manchester, NH, I had no idea the gift I would receive. To be honest, I’m usually sufficiently surprised by what happens when I do concerts and the amazing stories people tell me. But this one was different. Whitney Konz helped me out at the CD table for the evening, but it wasn’t until after the concert I learned her story.
There’s a part of my concert where I talk about how Christmas is an extremely difficult time of the year for many people. While the whole world seems to be celebrating and decking the halls with family and friends, many are experiencing intense feelings of sadness and grief due to death of a loved one, distance in relationship, depression, discord…I could go on, right? Then I sing “Emmanuel (You Are With Me)” [
watch the video here]. But when I heard Whitney’s story, I knew she could probably speak to this topic better than I ever could.
On June 24th, 2011 Whitney’s world was shattered when she got a phone call that her husband, Kevin, was dead. He had been mistaken as an intruder and shot. She was only 26 years old and the magnitude of not only his death, but the manner in which he died, was so unbelievable that she didn’t know if she was going to be able to survive.
“I stayed up nights crying and screaming. I couldn’t help thinking that it was my fault and that I should have done something, anything different so he would still be alive. It took months and months of support groups, individual therapy, and support from friends and family to finally realize that this was not my fault and that even though I was going through unimaginable pain, in time the pain would not be so bad and I would eventually smile at his memory instead of cry.”
