When the Music Fades: Remembering Matt

Almost twelve years ago, outside the front door of the renovated house where our oddball singles group met, a teenager with twinkling eyes pulled me aside to talk after the crowd began to disperse. Having heard me lead the music that night, Matt wanted to talk to me about his own future in music. I confessed I didn't know much of anything about making a career of it -- I was a self-taught guitarist who liked to sing, but I wasn't pursuing a contract or anything -- but gladly obliged when he asked if he could sing for me. He had a marvelous voice, and I didn't mind telling him so... but it was the sound I heard behind his voice -- his conviction and hunger to do more with his music than his years would yet allow -- that told me he would be someone to watch.

Four years later I heard the sound again -- not in a song, but in a conversation between Matt and my husband about our new recording studio. Having been laid off from my telecom job with a severance package generous enough to allow it, we'd bought a Mac, a ProTools setup, some fundamental recording equipment and enough bright purple soundproofing foam to give Barney the dinosaur an inferiority complex. Matt was full of questions, stunned at how little it really took to create a start-up studio, and bore the unmistakable look of a man who was determined to make it happen for himself.

In 2006, we and that fateful day in our apartment were mentioned -- though not by name -- in a news article where Matt was being interviewed about the recording studio he'd recently opened. Sadly, it appeared again in the news yesterday when the story broke that he and Stephen Swan, his sound engineer and good friend, had been gunned down in front of that same studio.

I firmly believe that Matt, for all the struggles he may have had here, is now in the presence of the only One whose approval of his music or work ever mattered... and God bless him, those long struggles are over. He leaves behind a twenty-two-year-old widow, a son just a month younger than my own and a daughter who will be two this fall.

Your prayers for his family, the Swan family, and even especially for those responsible would be greatly appreciated.

Comments

[J. Lo]

Memory Eternal Matt and Steve! May God grant them rest in a place of repose, where the voice of them that keep festival is unceasing, and unending the bliss of them that behold the unutterable beauty of His face. May He is rich in mercy woo by his grace those whose hearts were darkened to commit this tragedy.

[gbrown]

Kelly,
I'm so sorry things happen as they often do. There is so little we will ever understand about daily life which includes pursuing the Hope, enduring the Suffering and comprehending how God's grace is being administered. Love. It's all about love.

Reacting to the evil choices men make... is still about the unique love given us, instilled in us by a phenominally loving God... it's that part of Himself that is remanufacturing our daily breath. Only this week I had cause to remember to pray for the person who casually shot my precious wife while trying to steal her car. Matt and Steve transitioned, woke up from this earthly dream state and are simply, finally, awake and continuing on under God's loving direction. For His reasons, God wanted Cory to remain with us here, endure excriciating years of slow recovery and miraculously pull her through. As I write this she is far away, busy helping hundreds of poor, hurting people today.

Why it all works out in front of us the way it does, only God knows. But, He does know.