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FOREVER AND EVER, AMEN A MEMOIR OF MUSIC, FAITH, AND BRAVING THE STORMS OF LIFE RANDY TRAVIS WITH KEN ABRAHAM Forever and Ever Amen_1P.indd 5 12/7/18 2:07 PM © 2019 Randy Travis All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means— electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other— except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Nelson Books, an imprint of Thomas Nelson. Nelson Books and Thomas Nelson are registered trademarks of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc. Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund- raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e- mail [email protected]. Any Internet addresses, phone numbers, or company or product information printed in this book are offered as a resource and are not intended in any way to be or to imply an endorsement by Thomas Nelson, nor does Thomas Nelson vouch for the existence, content, or services of these sites, phone numbers, companies, or products beyond the life of this book. Scripture quotation marked kjv is from the King James Version, public domain. ISBN 978–1–4002–0798–5 (HC) ISBN 978–1–4002–0799–2 (eBook) Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data ISBN 978–1–4002–0798–5 Printed in the United States of America 19 20 21 22 23 LSC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Forever and Ever Amen_1P.indd 6 12/7/18 2:07 PM AUTHOR’S NOTE Because of certain circumstances I have experienced, I have relied on a number of individuals to help describe and fill in some details of this story. I have drawn upon the recollections of doctors, lawyers, music executives, fellow artists and writers, longtime band members and crew, friends, and family members to present this story as accurately as possible. Forever and Ever Amen_1P.indd 7 12/7/18 2:07 PM 1 PULL THE PLUG It was a sound I had become much too familiar with— the constant whirr of the machine that was keeping my collapsed lungs breathing, the incessant beep, beep, beep sound of the heart monitor. This was the soundtrack to the constant swirl of pensive doctors and nurses flitting in and out of my hospital room, poking one of my arms and then the other, taking more blood, running another test. You should always be careful what you say in a hospital room when a patient is unconscious or in a coma. Don’t ever utter a negative statement about his or her condition because the person in the coma might well be able to hear you. I know that is true. Because when I was in that state someone said the unthinkable: “He’s not going to make it.” “Maybe it’s time to discontinue life support.” “He can’t survive this.” “It’s time to pull the plug.” This wasn’t the first time my fiancé, Mary Davis, had heard such dire predictions. The doctors had given me less than a 1 percent chance of sur- vival since I’d first entered the hospital in Texas more than six weeks earlier, unable to breathe, with a virus in my heart that had led to a massive stroke 1 Forever and Ever Amen_1P.indd 1 12/7/18 2:07 PM 2 Forever and Ever, Amen and emergency surgery in which a large portion of my skull was removed to relieve the pressure in my brain. That portion of my skull was now secured in a pouch made of my own skin and sewn into my abdomen so the skull tissue could be kept alive until it was safe to reposition it on my head. The stroke had taken away my ability to speak clearly, and it had para- lyzed my right side, so I could barely move. After three weeks in the hospital in Texas, we had transferred to a rehabilitation center in Nashville, where my lungs had collapsed, I had contracted a staph infection, and my body was now septic. At times, I was semiconscious at best and breathing with the help of a machine. I had spent more than six weeks in a coma. A tra- cheotomy stabbed through my throat, and my head was covered with what looked like a 1920s football helmet. By this point, the doctors had basically given up any hope of my survival, and they probably thought they were being compassionate by encouraging Mary to pull the plug. Mary leaned in close to me at my bedside, where she had spent every day for the past two months. She pressed her hand into mine. “Honey, you have to let me know if you want to keep fighting,” Mary said. I wanted to shout as loudly as I had ever bellowed, yet no words formed, no sound came out of my mouth. But a single tear trickled from my eye and down my face as I mustered every ounce of energy I had. I squeezed Mary’s hand. She knew. Mary stood straight up, turned, and faced the doctors. “It’s not our choice . .” She stopped short, the words caught in her throat. She couldn’t bring herself to say, “. to decide whether Randy Travis lives or dies,” but everyone in the room understood. She squared her shoulders and looked straight at the doctors. “I suggest that everybody get on board, and let’s do everything we can to save him.” We both knew that my life was in God’s hands. Like me, Mary believed that God had plans for my life and that our faith would get us through. We just weren’t quite sure how. But I had braved numerous storms in my life and had frequently faced overwhelming odds, times when others had advised me to give up. I hadn’t quit then— and I wasn’t about to do it now. Forever and Ever Amen_1P.indd 2 12/7/18 2:07 PM 2 A TROUBLED YOUTH Get on up on this horse, Randy,” Daddy urged me. An unusually skillful horse trainer, my dad had taught the horse to kneel down on its front knees so I could climb into the saddle. I scrambled to place my foot into one of the stirrups and threw my leg over the beautiful animal as Daddy took a photograph. With a slight nudge from Daddy, the horse rose majestically to his full height. I felt as though I were on top of the world. I’ve always wanted to be a cowboy. From the time I was born as Randy Bruce Traywick— on May 4, 1959, in Marshville, North Carolina, a small town with a population of approximately three- thousand people, located about a half hour’s drive southeast of Charlotte— I had felt comfortable atop a horse. Thanks to Daddy’s profession, all my family members were as at home riding a horse as we were riding in a car. I was one of six kids in the Traywick household. My mama, Bobbie Rose Traywick, was a quiet, brown- eyed, dark- haired beauty. Mama worked in a textile mill that made potholders. She was a salt- of- the- earth sort of woman who felt it was her mission to have children, so she and Daddy had six of us within ten years. My brother Ricky Harold is the oldest, thirteen months older than me. I’m second in line, followed by Rose Mary in 1961; David in ‘62; Linda Sue in ‘64; and our youngest brother, Dennis, in ‘68. Our dad, Harold Traywick, was a tall, lean man who worked in 3 Forever and Ever Amen_1P.indd 3 12/7/18 2:07 PM 4 Forever and Ever, Amen construction but also raised beef cows on our property and trained horses. At one point we had as many as twenty or thirty horses on our property, so I grew up working with them and the other animals. Part of my chores every morning involved pitching hay for the horses and cleaning out the stalls with my brothers. That could be a bit of an adventure sometimes. In our teen years, my younger brother David grew a marijuana plant right outside the stables. He nurtured that plant, watered it, and watched it grow to nearly four feet high. No doubt he was planning to enjoy a number of home- grown highs. What he didn’t realize, though, was that his mari- juana plant had grown high enough that one of our horses could stick his neck out the stable window and nibble on it. Once he started, the horse chomped down that entire plant! When we went to clean out his stable the next morning, that poor horse’s front legs were crossed, and he was leaning over precariously to one side. He slumped over in a stupor, stoned out of his mind, and stayed that way for three days before he finally sobered up and could walk straight. I should have learned a lesson from that horse about the effects of marijuana, but I didn’t— not then, anyway I loved riding horses, even in the snow. When it snowed— which was always a big deal for kids in the Carolinas— my three brothers and two sisters and I, along with any cousins that might show up, would tie a sled behind one of the horses and use the horse to pull us up the hill.

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