Rich Mullins Died 19 Years Ago Today & I Still Miss Him

Rich Mullins Died 19 Years Ago Today & I Still Miss Him September 19, 2016

RM.001In the closing credits of a long-form video release (I think it was called Pursuit of a Legacy), Rich Mullins and his band of brothers credited someone named Owen Meany as “best boy.” In the film world, best boy refers to a kind of foreman position among lighting and rigging technicians. The name rang a bell, but it took me awhile to remember.

Owen Meany, you may know, was not a real person, but the main character in a book by John Irving called A Prayer for Owen Meany. The very day I saw this in the credits of that video I ran out to find a used book store and a copy of a book that meant enough to Rich that he’d put an odd reference to it in the credits of a video that only rabid fans would ever watch. And, by the way, the book remains one of my all time favorites. That’s the kind of impact Rich Mullins always had on my life.

When Rich died it did strange things to me. I had embarked on my own journey as a professional musician and songwriter, doing my best to follow in his footsteps as I went, and all the sudden he was gone. Irving describes the sensation this way in Owen Meany:

“When someone you love dies, and you’re not expecting it, you don’t lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time—the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comes—when there’s a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she’s gone, forever—there comes another day, and another specifically missing part.”

To this day it still happens to me several times a year. I’ll be playing the piano, listening to music, or dealing with people who refuse to be real with me (three things I associate with Rich), and the reality of his death will hit me again. It can be overwhelming. When you lose a person like that, you don’t lose him all at once.

I’m grateful that he left this trail of bread crumbs through his many songs and interviews and jokes and stories; bits and pieces of his life still scattered around my consciousness (and the internet I suppose). I’ve never stopped following them, hoping to glean more insight and more wisdom from the man who was, in many ways still is, my chief archetype. The world has all but forgotten Rich Mullins, but I never will. I put this out there to remind everyone that he is still the best songwriter I’ve ever run across. I’m missing Rich today. He was the most gifted musician, and a deep, deep well.

Perhaps it is fitting that the benediction that comes to mind in these many and fleeting moments of sorrow nearly always comes from the final line of John Irving’s great work…“O God — please give him back! I shall keep asking You.”

This is a song I wrote about Rich after he died. I tried to write something that seemed like a song he would write, and it’s riddled with references to his life and lyrics.


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