This excerpt from a Presbyterian News Service release tells the story of the death several days ago of singer/songwriter David M. Bailey:"David M. Bailey, a singer/songwriter who moved audiences as much with his story of personal courage in the face of terminal cancer as with his music, succumbed to Glioblastoma on Oct. 2 in hospice care near his home in Charlottesville, Va. He was 44.
The son of Presbyterian missionaries, Kenneth E. and Ethel Bailey, Bailey was raised in Beirut, Lebanon. He spent some of his youth in Germany — where he learned to play the guitar and began writing songs — before returning to the United States....
In July 1996, he was diagnosed with Glioblastoma, a particularly virulent form of brain cancer. He then quit his corporate job and turned to songwriting and performing full-time.
'They told me I had six months. They were wrong,' Bailey said. 'Despite what you might hear, hope is a very real thing, and with every passing day, there are more and more reasons to hope.'
For 14 years he defied that diagnosis, writing and performing virtually non-stop, covering 45 states and 21 countries. His concerts were deeply personal, brutally honest accounts — rendered in a musical style that has been compared to James Taylor and Cat Stevens — of his struggles with his illness and his determination to make the most of whatever time God gave him.
His signature tune was 'One More Day.' The chorus goes:
'One more day when you can hold your children
One more day you can hold your wife
One more day when you can watch the grass grow
One more day when you can live your life.'"
It calls to mind the familiar scripture verse: "This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it." (Psalm 118:24)
It's a lesson David taught us: how to live in the now, praising God for all good gifts. His music - and that lesson - will live on, through his recordings.
Prayers and good wishes go out to his family.
