I will always love you

Dolly Parton has been a fixture in country music and popular culture my entire life. Her career started way before I was born, in fact. I Will Always Love You is a classic, and it came from an era when country music was very different. She wrote the song in 1972, reportedly the same day she wrote Jolene, which is my favorite Dolly Parton song. Also, take note of Dolly's seated position in the above video (recorded in 1974?), which is a very hard way to sing a song like this, yet she does it naturally and beautifully.

Most people are familiar with the 1992 Whitney Houston version of this song, which is very good (though I don't care for the sax). Whitney was one of the greatest singers of our time, and I was deeply saddened when she passed. Still, I have to agree with this comment on YouTube: "Whitney's version makes your knees weak and gives you goosebumps; Dolly's version makes you break down and cry like a baby." Indeed, while Whitney's voice can tear the roof off a building and break the sky, Dolly's voice speaks to your heart.

You know who this song is about. 

There is a girl out there who has my heart. She may not know it, may not even feel it, but it is with her always — day and night, rain or shine. It will always be there, too, as sure as the sun shines and the moon orbits the earth. 

But this song is about leaving and saying goodbye. On good terms. At its core, it is sad. But am I sad? That girl gave me some of the greatest feelings and moments of my life — moments when I really believed everything would be okay, that there was something wonderful out there for me. I still carry that beautiful thought in my heart, though reality has informed it otherwise. Though she may regret what we had, I only mourn what became of us.

When you lose someone you love, you lose your identity. The more you put into them, the more you lose. Though our relationship was short, I put everything I could into us. Ask most people what they think of love and they will tell you about loss and heartbreak. But that is not love. That's what happens when love and all its wonder leaves. Love is a beautiful, ever-expanding thing in your chest. It fills you up and makes you give it to those around you because it's a shame to keep it to yourself. It changes everything. It certainly changed me. 

So, while she may have said goodbye, my heart still beats for her. My heart watches over her in prayer, in tenderness, in quietness, in harmony — when she cries, it cries; when she laughs, it laughs with her; when she sighs, it puts a hand on her shoulder and hopes she knows how much she is loved. It seeks nothing for itself, this heart. It only wants to be near her, to gently whisper what she perhaps always knows — that I will always love her.