Dear Reba McEntire,
I’m not a familiar face, but I wish I was. But as I write this letter I feel kind of odd because you don’t know me, but I feel like I need to tell you what has been on my mind so much. I have never been to any of your concerts. I don’t have any of your CD’s, I try to save up enough money so I can try to buy them, but I always have to use the money for something else. The only thing that I have is a t-shirt that my brother gave me about five years ago, a couple of months before he died of a massive heart attack. He went to one of your concerts in the early 90’s, and he loved it. I try to watch all the reruns of your show “Reba” and all the award shows and everything else on TV that you might be on. I get all excited and run around the house (when no one is home, of course, or at least half the time) like a maniac when I see you or I hear one of your songs on the radio.
When I was younger I wanted you as my mother. That sounds odd doesn’t it? I just wanted someone that would always be there for me. Now many years later, I know that wasn’t the plan God had for me. I want to run up to you, give you a big hug, tell you what your music has done for me, and never let you go. I want to tell you thank you, while at the same time, trying to hold my tears back that I know I’ll cry anyways( that’s what happened when I saw Kellie Pickler at the Umatilla County fair in Oregon last Summer, Man was that a sad sight. I’ve never cried like that and it was so unexpected too. I didn’t know I had that kind of crying in me).
I grew up in a broken home, and it was my life style that I lived until I was sixteen years old. I have a mom that I love very much, don’t get me wrong. Around the time I was born my mom was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. My mom had tried to do all she could do for me. There were times, when my mom couldn’t handle me anymore and she would send me down to my grandparents’ house that was a few 100 feet away so she could sleep and try to get over the bipolar symptoms. She wanted to be alone and didn’t want to take care of me, or at the time that is what I thought, but later found out that she wanted to be the best mother a child would want, but she couldn’t take care of me like a mother is suppose to. I had to have faith in my mom and know she was doing all she could do for me. She wasn’t the kind of mom, that was there to praise you all the time, but she tried her best. I had to realize that she was trying to take care of herself, so she could take care of me also. Half the time, I had a mother that didn’t know how to handle me because she had bipolar. And the other half she knew how to take care of me as if she was born to be the mother she was born to be. She loves me with all she can give me. My mom isn’t the perfect mom in the world, but I think, no, I know she tries to be the best she can be for her nineteen year old daughter that can still be a pain in the butt.
When I was younger, my dad would come home from work and be so mad because my mom didn’t clean the kitchen or do anything around the house. She would just sit and mope and watch “Days of our Lives”. She couldn’t get herself up and do what needed to be done, and he didn’t understand that. They were only married for two years.
My dad…um…Well has a different way of showing love. That is if it’s called love. I’ve seen my dad hit my step mom and I know that he didn’t treat my mom well either. I remember around of the age of two being in a domestic violence shelter with my mom. Sharing a bed with my mom and some other mom’s sharing their beds with their kids. I remember so well that we only had so many minutes in the bathroom in the morning to do everything we needed it do. There were number locks on the front door. Those were the days I wish my mommy had a hero.
My dad can never make up his mind if he “likes” or “dislikes” my mom. “I thought your mother was the most beautiful woman in the world” he would say one day and the next day he would say “Joy, You’re acting just like you d*** mother, just stop it. I hate that you look like her and act like her.” He says he’s a Christian, but half the time I don’t know if he is.
Reba the real reason I’m writing this letter to you is because I want to let you know how much you have done for me without even knowing it, with out even laying one eye on me.
Growing up, I always had this song stuck in my head. It was released when I was about two years old and I can remember it like it was yesterday. I’m not going to, at this moment; tell you what the song is because, well, you will find out the song later.
I would sing this song as if it was my own. It had a meaning to it for me that had nothing to do with the video. But it was a song that always kept that two year old going. Keep living life I would hear it all the time on the radio. I would sing it and dance how a two year old would dance. I kept on hearing it until I was five and for some reason it either went off the air for a long time or I just never got the chance to hear it again.
When I was five years old, my life was twisted and pulled into so many directions. I had been basically raised by my grandparents and my mom for most of my life. I had the country air outside my front door, didn’t have any friends, and I had already been molested. Sometimes I wonder why things happen, but like everyone else says in my family, “God has a plan for your life, Joy.” By the time I was fourteen years old I had been through more than any child should have to go through. But three months before my sixteenth birthday my life took another tight turn... I was sexually abused again. The night that I was molested, I climbed under my old torn blanket, turned on my radio put my head phones on, and cuddled with my blanket. My only source of protect at the time. I thought I was never going to get to sleep until Blair Garner on the after midnite show said, the most powerful words I’d hadn’t heard in a long while. “Here is Reba McEntire singing ‘Is There Life Out There’ on the midnite show with Blair Garner.” I couldn’t believe it the one song that I needed more than anything else was playing, the song that I wanted to hear since I was five years old. The only sentence that meant anything to that little five year old girl was the line that said “Is There Life Out There” The only thing I could remember out of the whole song fourteen years later was “Is There Life Out There”. Thank you for singing “Is There Life Out There”. You will never know how much that song means to me to this day. You will never know how much you have touched my soul. You will never know how many people you touch every day with your music. Now all I want is to give you the biggest hug I could give you. God Bless!

Sincerely,
Your biggest fan