A MESSAGE FROM VANESSA:

My dad was supposed to fly to Nashville with me to watch me record. He died one month before our trip. 

Pancreatic cancer doesn't negotiate, it just takes. Somewhere between his diagnosis and choosing the font for his grave, I started writing songs again.

I didn't know where else to put what I couldn't say out loud.

After my debut album in 2010, I set songwriting down. Life was filling up in all the right ways. I was building a business I love, married my teenage sweetheart, and raising three kids who made the world feel full in beautiful ways.

I create custom diamond rings for people in love. This kind of work lets me hold someone's story in my hands and turn it into something they'll wear for the rest of their life.

Music and jewelry have always asked me the same question:  How do you turn someone's story into something meaningful?

And in those months of anticipatory loss, not knowing how to hold what was coming for my Dad and our family, melodies started flowing. Lyrics scribbled at midnight when I couldn't fall asleep. Voice memos recorded in my driveway before I could walk back inside and pretend everything was fine. Songs that said all the things I couldn't say to his face. (And what I imagined he might be thinking, but couldn't bring myself to ask.)

My dad was the biggest cheerleader in pursuing creative passions as a career. He was the one who believed in my music even when I hesitated.  When I nervously shared a song on Father’s Day about how I was feeling after his diagnosis, he didn't just encourage me. He made plans to come with me to Nashville and sit in that studio watching me record the songs grief had pulled out of me.

He didn't make it in time.  But sitting alone in the studio, I could feel him. There were signs throughout the entire trip that only he would know.

In 2023, exactly one year after he passed, I released an album to honor him, which unexpectedly aligned with the Five Stages of Grief. The response stunned me. Messages from strangers who'd lost parents, children, spouses… People said my songs gave words to how they were feeling.

That's something I learned about grief that no one told me: it doesn't just take.  

It gives.

Not in some silver-lining way or in an “everything happens for a reason” way, but in the connections that form when you stop pretending you're okay. The friendships I've made through this music are deeper than any I could have formed without it.

C.S. Lewis wrote about losing someone he loved, that it wasn't just the loss of that person that broke him. It was the part of himself that only that person could bring out.

I think about that a lot.

Because until then, my dad believed in my music more than I did. That kind of encouragement doesn't just motivate you, it becomes part of you. And keeping this creative work alive, continuing to show up for it, is how I honor everything he poured into me. It's how I carry him forward.

I also noticed my three kids were watching.

They were learning how I was processing intense grief, while also balancing work, family, and personal passions.  I decided I want them to grow up knowing that success isn't linear. You can build something meaningful, set it down, come back to it, and it will still be yours.

My company and my music have always been about the same thing. LOVE. Capturing a moment in time and making it last. They coexist more beautifully than I expected... Each one makes the other richer.

Here's what I know now that I didn't before:  Creativity doesn't expire. It waits. Patiently humming underneath the fullness of life, ready to return the moment you have something to say.

I think my dad would love knowing his belief in me helped keep this part of me alive.

Because I love it. And he knew that. (Even when I set it down.)

My songwriting is about love and grief and the unexpected things that arrive when your heart starts rebuilding itself.  It's about the question I finally stopped being afraid to ask: What if you have more to say than you thought?

I did.

And the music was waiting for that exact moment. ❤️