Another Time, Another Place: Sandi Patty’s Story Continues

Welcome to the Wayne Watson Podcast, where Grammy nominee and multiple dove award-winning artist Wayne Watson engages in lively conversation with remarkable people from every walk of life. Artists to help care professionals, athletes, and leaders to everyday believers whose stories reflect the power of faith at work in the world. Join us as we go beyond the spotlight and into the heart of what it means to live with purpose and conviction, diving into real conversations about the moments that shape us. The faith that sustains us and the God who inspires it all. Now here's your host, Wayne Watson. Welcome back. This is part two of my interview with Sandy Patty. Enjoy. So if you don't want to go there, if you don't want to go there, that's fine. No, let's go there. I mean, it's, you know, it's our story is our story. There was some connection that he had with the Church of God somehow, but I had never met him. We had files for divorce. It was the very next day in the comics that, and I think he was just saying, hey, I see you. But I think that's what he was saying. Do you remember what it was? Yes, I do. You can even, you can even look it up. It's, if you look up Sandy Patty, Charles Schultz, peanuts, you can see it. Charlie Brown is roller skating in one and he's got a walk going on. The next slide, Charlie Brown has fallen and it said, Sandy Patty hit a high note. That's all it was. And I think he was just saying, you're loved, you're loved, you're just loved. And you didn't know that was going to happen. Not a clue. What, how did you feel when you saw that? Did somebody tell you that was there? Yeah, somebody said, did you know you're in the peanuts and at first I thought, oh, gosh, you know, what's it going to be this, right? And it was just so, so sweet. And I'm going to tell you, Wayne, and you can edit this out later so you can do whatever you want with that. I have, and I hope you know me well enough that I have owned my crap. But do you know that not one church leader ever asked me if I was safe in my home, not one? And that is a lesson for me. That of course there's always two sides to everything and sin is sin and I own, I have books about it, so we don't need to go there. But not one church leader ever reached out to me and said, are you safe? Are your kids safe? Not one. And I just wish we could change that. And I just feel like in my journey, I want, I am trying to change that as I hear about this person or that person or whatever. I am, I really do intentionally reach out to them and just say, what do you need? What do you need? What do you need? Because I think for the longest time, we in the church especially have mistaken, loving and supporting someone as condoning. And those are two, and so if someone is seen as how can we be there for you right now, then they're seen as condoning. And that's not the case. Look closely into this camera. I never did. I wasn't saying that because of that way. Listen, I didn't, you know, some of our other peers went through the same thing. I never said anything out loud, but in my legalistic judgmental heart, I did. And of course, I remember thinking of that would never happen to me and you know the rest of that story. And very few people reached out, I hear what you're saying. You know, one of the people I do remember reaching out was my college choir director, Dr. Bob Farrington, who kept me in college when I was trying to quit because I had an offer to play bass in a group in California. And he taught me into staying and he called me, I'm in the car after all this had gone down. He didn't want to know why or what this, what happened, he just said, are you okay? And he demonstrated sweetness and grace to me in the darkest time of my life. And he was such a great guy. He's been with the Lord for a while. I remember playing a benefit with him and he was somewhat impaired and they were talking about his son. I said, where's your son? He said, and his wife said, well, he's on sabbatical and he's on sabbatical and I asked Doc, I said, what's the difference in sabbatical and sabbatical? And he said, I think two letters. So there are people in our lives, you know, there might not be lots of them and there are probably lots of them that are pointing fingers and judgmental and they really don't have a clue about the details. Like you're saying, are you safe? They didn't know that. They didn't care about that. They just cared about what their perception of the consequences were. And that's unfortunate and thank God we learn from those things. Yes. It allows us to be more gracious and compassionate to people because like I said in the church, if they're not there, they've thought about it and they're close and some of them have been there once, twice, three times. So just take a deep old spiritual breath and just chill and allow God to love on us like he wants to and help us to love people like like he wants us to. And that sort of led you to somewhat of a retirement in 2015. What was that like to say, I'm going to retire, which, you know, when, uh, so, so Don and I have now been married 31 years, which means another time another place tour was 31 years ago. 32, 33, oh man. And um, we have raised eight kids between us. So when we got married, I had four, he had three. And then we adopted fan Don, Don was adopted and so that was just, that just felt, I don't know, we just both had it in our heart that we wanted to do that. We now have six in laws, 12 and a half grandkids. Yeah, we have another one on the way, who's, who's got the one coming in sick, Donnie and Katie. Okay. And they've been married 13 years and never, ever, ever thought this was in the cards for them. Oh. And so they're just so, I mean, it's like, wait, what? So they're thrilled. So um, I wanted to do a tour. I wanted more time with this tribe now because I call myself the HR director, because we are 29 people, 29, that is a small company. So Don is the activities director and I am the HR director. And by the time you know, you check in on everybody, I just wanted more time to do that. My voice was feeling different to me. And so I wanted to honor the art form and not just be, you know, bright, far from play too long, you know. So I did, we did a last tour called Forever Grateful, had my kids singing. It was really, it was very special. So when I talk about retiring in my lenses, I am home or I am, I have my personal choice, 75% of the time, 25% of the time I love doing things with other artists. So which I'm doing, and especially with the gates or family now, I wasn't looking to do another record. But I started doing a few of the homecoming things with Bill and Gloria, who have just sort of stepped in as the role of parents for me, um, and it's been so sweet. So their team said, well, why don't you do a record, I was like, I don't want to do a record. And the more I talk, you know, it just, I felt like if I was doing any solo dates, I was having to do 1985 Sandy Patty, and 2026 Sandy Patty cannot, nor does she want to do 1985 Sandy, but they were like, that's, we want, we want what is on your heart now. And so it just felt right, um, anyway, I've been working with Gordon Moat and, um, have a new record that's coming out in the first of the year. What will happen with that? I'm used to be, we had, we had release dates, you would finish the master, you'd finish, you'd hand it off to the record company and met new people and the print people and the radio people. And now people say, when are you going to release something? I mean, it would be like a dove in your hand and go release, release, one at a time. Yeah. What does that mean? All the rest of them. What does that mean? You're going to release something after the first of the year. So, um, there's 12 songs on this project and still we don't have a name for it yet. All new material or, um, it is, um, it's all new material for me. Okay. It is some reimagined stuff like, for instance, the Gapher vocal band is singing poor on the power with me. Okay. It's so good. Oh, that's awesome. Bill is singing a duet with me on the longer I served him. Oh my goodness. And, um, and then I'm doing, you know, a couple of, of Gapher songs I am loved. But then I, there's six that are brand new songs. Um, there's a, there's a song called just look at our God because that's the praise I have been saying for the last year, just all these things. And I have to tell you about Sam. There's all new songs like I've been saying this phrase, just look at our God for the last year. So we wrote a song called just look at our God, um, a redo of the him, love lifted me and kind of a six, eight thing. And then there's a fabulous song that Susie and Gather wrote whose bill and glorious daughter called risk. These lyrics, they slay me. So I'm excited because these are relevant things to where I am in the season of my life. Right. And the keys are relevant to this person of my life. Yes. And so therefore I'm not dreading if I have to go sing it live. Right. Um, and that is a, that's a wonderful, wonderful feeling. So probably what's going to happen is all 12 songs will be released the first of the year. But they'll start dropping singles again, maybe September. Talk about your mom and dad, uh, just a little bit, um, your dad and mom both went to be with the Lord in the last few years. Yeah. You chose to move back to Indiana. You know, I, I talked to some of my other guests about loss. As you get older, one of the biggest challenges is how do you manage loss? I know your parents were very, very special and close to you. How did you, how did you navigate that impending loss? You knew it was coming. What did you do? What I have learned from the hospice family, and I cannot say enough about the world of hospice, hospice taught me that leaving this world with dignity is a beautiful thing. This also allowed me to be the daughter and they could do the heavy lifting. And my mom elected hospice and then the next three months, she had the best three months of her whole entire life. She could say what she wanted to say. She could fuss with my dad. You know, she just, she became this whole woman, um, the day before she moved to heaven, she played Clare de Lune from the piano. Oh my gosh. She, she, we got her an extra long cord with their oxygen. Yes. You could just bring that extra long cord and go to the piano. And she sat and played Clare de Lune. She was always telling people that they are loved everywhere. Then she started adding you are loved today, not because you wouldn't be loved tomorrow, but because you don't know what tomorrow holds. So she, her phrase, now the grandkids, I'll say I love you today. That was her probably her life mission is to remind people whether she was in the grocery store or whatever, honey, you are loved today. She always asks like, are you okay, baby, you know, just, and I loved that about her. But when she was ready to go, we respected her wishes. She had congestive heart failure. She had a broken knee. She did not want surgery and, um, and so the, the challenge and the honor is to give them the dignity of what they would like, how they would like to leave this earth. She just knew. And so we, we with her, yes, um, all the grandkids wanted to be part of it. So I asked her before she, you know, sort of began to fade. Can I set up a Zoom call and just let the kids be here? And so we, we lit candles and we just said, it's okay, mama, it's okay. I will, I'll make sure dad eats, I'll make sure Craig's okay. Please don't worry, mama, you go see Mike, because my brother had already gone to heaven. And she, so she loved hearing our old family recordings. So we played some of those. This is the funniest thing ever. So she's laying there just kind of, you know, the veil gets really bad. And we're playing our family did, I believe in the barbershop quartet kind of acapella. And so we found it and we played that for her. We get to the end of the first verse, go into the second verse and she's laying there and go, we dropped a beat right there. And she was not wrong. She was the musical one of she had perfect pitch, which drove her crazy sometimes. But she just, she just was ready. And so she just, I think once everybody gave her permission, not permission, they're blessing like you've taken care of everyone. She couldn't walk, she couldn't breathe, you know, and she didn't want to be in pain. And that's where hospice came in and really just eased her mind. So she passed away on August the 22nd of 2023, the following year, November, my dad passed away on November 14th. I never understood how people remembered those dates until it happened to me. And you'll never forget him. You can probably exactly remember, you know, those dates with your family. And my dad played golf with Don just about every day. And he was getting slower and slower and slower and slower. He was beginning to fall. He was beginning to have just some disorientation, some dementia, he was 91. And when he could not hit the golf ball, Don said, I saw it, I saw it that day. He swung and he missed the golf ball. He put that club in his bag. And that was it. I'm done. And I'm done. And he was really looking forward to coming to this symphony show that I do every other Christmas with the Indianapolis symphony called Ultide. But he began to realize he was not going to make it. And he, I know he knew I started rehearsal on November 18th. And on November 14th, he just, he was gone. And so much of what I, how I engage with an audience is him getting people to sing, sing out, corny jokes, you know, that is just all, that's just all him. And this week for some reason Wayne has been especially tender. I've just missed him this week, sometimes it ambushes me. And then sometimes it's, you know, it's, it's okay. So it feels really sweet to talk about them today. My, my brother and my dad were very close, they lived in the same town, they saw each other almost every day. But my dad was on his way out. And he did not depart until my brother gave him permission, just like you said, yeah. My brother said, Dad, because he didn't want dad to go. He did not want to let you out. And that is a, that is a big thing. And dad knew it, I think. And when my brother said, Dad, it's okay, I'll take care of everybody. Yeah. And he died that night. Yeah. Were you there? I was not there. I had been with him for a week. Okay. I had to get back to Houston. I remember driving on a country road very, very fast. There were no ins and outs on that road. I knew for about 10 miles. I just put the pedal down and screamed and got back to Houston. And six o'clock the next morning woke up and sat up in bed and grabbed my chest and thought I was dying. Oh, my goodness. He went back to sleep. My brother called about an hour later and said, Dad's gone. So he went back and did the funeral. And after the funeral, we're talking about things. And I said, what time did Dad die? He said, it was around six. And I said, the strangest thing happened to me. It was like, you know, the lightning that goes across the sky, horizontal, it was like a flash lightning across my chest. Wow. And I went back to sleep. And my brother was looking at me. I said, that's weird. And he said, the same thing happened to me. And I think when we, when we do cross the line into eternity, our first sound is going to be, oh, yeah, I had no idea. But you know, we don't know how things go. And just because you can ask Google any question and get some sort of answer doesn't mean we know everything. But one of the things I love about you is you're, you're okay being broken. And those of us who were broken after you now feel more of a kindred spirit with you and others ever. And I want to tell people in audiences, if you, if you are broken, I understand. And if you're not, you will be, yes, and when you are, remember, remember what it feels like. Yeah. And be gracious and it's like it's the scripture, the more grace that we only can give grace by the amount of grace given to us. And that's why sometimes our eyes get open and we can recognize the brokenness and other people, not because we're judging because we've been there. And you try, you know, as you, as you go older, the things, the people that you can relate to in that brokenness are, are fewer. And that's okay because people that have not been down that path yet, it's just difficult to be intimate friends with them. But dealing with loss has, has been a, has been a challenge and the unknown and God has promised. He would never forsake us. But he did not promise to sustain us in the manner of living that we'd become accustomed. And I sometimes wonder, you know, will life get turned upside down? And I believe he's still paying attention to you and to me and, you know what? And when that is our, for me, that is my only hope. Mm-hmm. Honestly. Yeah. I don't care what the afterlife is. I don't care in times, whatever, but I do know God is in charge. Yes. And however life plays out, God is in charge. Yep. And that's, that's just, that's my lifeline. Well, and, and how, how he, as God, pays attention to me and you and our kids and our grandchildren and loves on us is just mind boggling to me. What are your plans? You're going to stay in Indiana? You know, that's a great question. We're poised to pivot. Yes. And so right now, it feels really a natural thing to be snowbirds, but in Oklahoma. Oh, okay. Because we've got eight grandkids between Oklahoma and Dallas. And then Indiana puts us closer to Nashville. Right. So that feels very summer, spring. The daughter who works in Florida, we can, you know, go there whenever. So that's sort of our tentative play-in right now. Yeah. But we're poised to pivot. Okay. One question's, vocal tips. You say, you know, you and I have sung another time, another place in the last decade together in a lower key. This one, yeah. What are you doing with your voice now? How do you take and carry your voice to make and let it be what it is now? Again, it's not what it was in 1985, neither is mine. And that's fine. Well, it's, it's, I, I warm up very similar to how I've always warmed up, which is a 20-minute warm up, but I'm not going to lie to you. I do it three times. So the warm up is, it's like, you know, stretching, you know, when you're 70, it's very different than, you know, when you were 40. So I, I told, I just told Don the other day, I said, I have to warm up an hour. That's just, that's just what I have to do. That's reality. I can do that. And then what happens in a live setting, I feel much more elastic. Then if I just show up like I might have been able to do in my 30s and wing it, that is not even a possibility. Not an option. Not an option. So, you know, and young people, please start warming up now. I know a lot of young artists, this is my, this is what I'm saying to them, warm up. You're going to condition your vocal cords now so that you have a lot more options when you're older. But so warming up is a big one for me. I'm actually getting ready to do, like just for video, a new warm up that I'll put on YouTube or something. The reality is my range is very much six notes lower. That's just what it is. That's just, okay, I have to kind of grieve that. But that's just reality, but you know what? I go back to you in a way, in a way, it wasn't ever always about the notes, it was about the story. The notes made it maybe a spectacular for some people, but it didn't for me. It was always about the story. Can I still tell a story? Yes, yes, I can tell a story that I believe in. People love, people love the notes. You know, they do, and I just, you know, I just have to hire a soprano to take. I heard Don Henley talking about warming up before their eagles shows in the sphere, and he said, I don't do so much vocal warming up as I do sit-ups in the crunches. He said, because you got a punch from the gut and make the sound, and that was interesting. And I also heard Michael McDonald talk about warming up, and he said, he warms up low registers to relax the esophagus. Not pushing the top range, but just warming up low to relax everything. What is your favorite song to sing ever? If you had to sing more and more, yeah, what would be your, if you had one more to sing, what would you do? I have always in forever love to his eyes on the sparrow, because you know this, we both know this. Sometimes you sing, or you write, because you aspire something to be true. And so for so many years, I would sing, I sing because I'm happy, because I sing it out of aspiration. Now I sing it out of inspiration, because I know it to be true in my life. So that's been one of those songs, that's just kind of followed me, and I love the lyrics about. I love the story of it, and I can say it, I sing, because I'm happy, and free. That the one that's touched you the deepest then, wow, okay, complete these sentences. If I knew in middle school, but I know now, I would have, not gotten so many perms. Oh, we have pictures, that's the thing about people following our careers for 40 years is their pictures, there are, there's documentation, there are perms and there are mullets in there. That sounds like a country song, you know, there are perms and there are mullets, so we'll work. You need to write that. We'll work on that. Okay. It would surprise, fill in the blank, it would surprise people to know that I listened to. Force Frank, maybe. Force Frank. Mm-hmm. Oh, come on. What else? Okay. Uh, well, I don't know that I can, I don't, anything jazz, instrumental jazz. Okay. You're right now. Okay. Lottery Dreamhouse, one of my dear pastor, for instance, Lottery, games for people who are bad at math, lottery dream home, where and what would it be like? In the beach, probably in the Dustin area somewhere, and big enough that all of our family could come all 27, all 29, that would absolutely be my dream house. Okay. Lottery Dreamcar. I am not a car person. I know you're not. This is my husband very much when I say, oh, I just rented this car. I think it's a Chevy. Can I send him a picture and he goes, honey, that's a Buick. I don't, I don't care. But I do, but I do care about the interior, and I love the big screens and all the bells and whistles and an air-conditioned seat. Okay. Okay. Otherwise, I don't really care. Last meal. Meatloaf mashed potatoes and peas. Yeah. Like, like green, uh, English peas, like I'd, green peas. Yeah. When I get off the road having been gone for a while, that is the meal I make. Meatloaf mashed potatoes and peas. You make it yourself? I do. Meatloaf. Uh, you can't get it. You know, you can't hear, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not your mama's meatloaf. And my meatloaf is so good. Oh my gosh. Mm-hmm. Well, Sandy, I love you like a sister. You are my sister. Let me rack a brother, older brother. Let's just say that. Hey, because we can't make sure that you can eat, how old is Sam now? You can talk about, you can talk about Sam. Talk about Sam. Yeah, but, uh, I don't, you, you can decide. I don't have his permission. Okay. Okay. I want you guys to know this. Yeah. So, you know, Sam's journey has been interesting. Yes. It has been gangster. It has been alcohol. So about five years ago, he came back kind of not somewhat against his will, but I think he was happy to come back to Oklahoma. Because someone out in California said to him, young man, you just need to find you a young lady and have you a couple of kids and settle down. Just the bottom line is don't be an ass in this life, just be a good human. My son and I had some, we traveled together, we, baseball, you know, tournaments, a three months later, he called me from LA. My birthday said, Hey, mom, this is your son, Sam, calling to tell you happy birthday. So then he moved back to Oklahoma, he and baby mama had a couple kids. It's been rough. Cops have been called blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, um, fought as hard as he could away from Jesus, just as hard as he could, uh, until whatever. And this is why I'm just saying, just look at our God. I had this on my, I had like a prayer, um, cabinet, like not a prayer room, but a prayer cabinet, like on the inside, I would put the scriptures and pictures and things. I finally tore that crap down and just threw it in the trash. And I said, you know what, God, I cannot do this anymore. It's got to be you. And I really felt like God said, well, finally, seriously. And so I just, I just, whatever Sam gave me, I received, I did not initiate. So he comes to our family vacation, this last November, where we did have that dreamhouse on the beach with everybody. And there was a lot of tension because he has ruined so many vacations. Sure. Um, he's hijacked him. And he had been sober two months before coming and he asked for forgiveness from the brothers and sisters. Okay. All right. Didn't see that then he hasn't going to church. Then he said to baby mama, I think he would enjoy. Maybe we can all go all before us go together. So then I'll start going to church. Then he tells us, I'm getting a tattoo on my head, we're like, I'm sorry, what? You are so freaking handsome. Why are you, you know, and then he tells us it's the face of Jesus because he is kind of balding. It's the face of Jesus with the crown of thorns, a friend of mine said, you have literally been praying for God to cover him from the tops of his head to the souls of his feet. There was a time he would have gotten six, six, six tattooed on him. There was a time he would have gotten the blood through the crypts tattooed on him. The face of Jesus is not too bad. He is sober now for seven months. He and baby mama, he's working and I just keep saying just look at our God. Just look at our God. I mean, a tattoo is not a small thing. When someone says, tell me about that on your head. There's a story. I just, just look at our God. That's all I have. We don't always get to see the end of the story. So when God gives us a glimpse of some, some semblance of completion like you're talking about, I, I, Don and I were to the point of saying we know that God is faithful, even if we won't be able to see it in our generation. Right. Right. Say, to get a glimpse of, yeah, you told me that when you adopted Sam, you knew you were going to name him Sam, but when they rolled him out into the, into the nursery, the nurses had named him Sam without knowing you were going to name him Sam. Correct. They said when he was born, he just looked like a Sam. Calling him Sam, and then, and so Don and I see that name and we're like, Oh my gosh. And then there's like, Oh, I'm sorry, you don't have to keep that name. It's like, no, you don't understand it's, and that's why I know God has had his hand on his life. Yeah. He's paying attention. He's paying attention. We adopted our little guy when he was born, brought him home three days old with no preparation. We had nothing. He came early. Megan was in Poland. I know. At the time, I had gotten off a cruise with you. Yeah. I had been on a cruise with you. I'm not sure who else was with us on that cruise, but I had gotten home and she and I had a Liberty Cross pass in the airport. She was headed to Poland for the USA for the world indoors with the track team. And they called me and told me he was coming that night and that was, he turned 12. Yes. And the same ages as our grandson that year, yeah, baseball. I've learned more about God from him than a lifetime of church, my friend who pulled me from almost going off the rails during a dark time, told me that in the Middle Eastern culture and probably other cultures, you cannot disown an adopted child. Did you ever heard that? I have not. You cannot disown an adopted child. You can legally disown a blood child. You can so you are no longer my child, but you cannot disown an adopted child because you chose them. Wow. And I asked a friend of mine, what do I do? How do I do this? He said, just let him know you love him. Yeah. That's all. We have a lot in common and we have lived a lot of life together. We've navigated a lot of life together. I am sorry. We didn't. I wasn't more aligned with you during hard times. People would say they have no regrets. I'm sorry. I think they're just liars. But from our regrets, we learned and God steers us. I used to watch my dad drive and I love driving. I'd rather drive than fly and I couldn't wait until I got my driver's license. I knew Jesus was coming back. I just wanted to get my driver's license first. I remember watching my dad drive and he would take us to the track at the school and let us drive around the track and I'd sit in the back and I'd watch him do the wheel of it. I'll never remember. Is it left left right left right right left left? And it occurred to me later that he's making small corrections so that he doesn't have to make a big correction subconsciously making small corrections. In our lifetime, if we can make small corrections, the odds of running into the ditch are fewer. You may not have to get pulled out of that. You just make small corrections when they're presented to you. All the things that we've navigated, you and I both, we've hit the ditch a couple of times. We have. And there's always a tow truck. And I'm so grateful for what you have meant to me and what you've meant to the world and what you've meant to the music community. Again, it's just, I hope there are times we cross paths in the future and do something else and I'll just say goodbye and then I want to tell you one more thing. So thank you for being with me today. My pleasure. I, you know what? I don't know why it's taken till a podcast, but sit down and talk for, just talk. But I am so grateful we got to do this. Thank you, Wayne. And we're back. I have one last question. What's in the drawer every house has, every house has a drawer. Oh, yeah. What's in it? What's in it? Well, is it in the kitchen? It is. Okay. Right now, what is in it are several different colors of like paint tape because it's a really fun thing for grandkids to play with. And they can make trails on the floor. So that's one thing, scissors, lighter for candles, some batteries, lip gloss because and hair ties, okay, any sharpies, spare keys, the keys are somewhere else. Keys we actually leave on our hood in the garage because I locked them in way too many times. So now we just throw them up on the windshield wiper, yeah, that's the drawer and looking at it right now, sharpies, we have similar things in the drawer. We have scissors and we have tape and we have spare keys and lots of sharpies and different highlights. Lots of sharpies. I don't know what this is because we collect them. We steal them from people in the line and then we have this whole tour of sharpies. Most of them are dried out and don't work but we keep them anyway and I don't know why we keep them anyway. Thanks for listening to The Wayne Watson Podcast where stories of faith, purpose and everyday life meet and continue to uplift hearts around the world. Be sure to follow, leave us a review and share this episode with a friend. To learn more about Wayne's music, ministry and upcoming projects visit WayneWatson.com. Every journey of faith begins with a story and every heart finds its rhythm in the Lord. Until next time, go well and may you keep walking in step with his song flowing through you.