Sometimes, to truly appreciate our experiences, we have to learn the stories of those who stand beside us. To know me is to know the man who has chosen to walk this path beside me. This is a piece of my husband’s history, a reflection of his quiet inner reflection. It is the gospel of harmonies and the unexpected rhythms that shape his being and, in turn, helped shape the person I am today.

He grew up in those country hills of  North Georgia, a landscape where the pines grow thick and the traditions grow thicker. While many would simply label him a “country boy,” he often self-identifies with the harsher, defensive grit of “white, poor, trailer trash.” I’ve always disagreed. While he may have emerged from humble beginnings, he was born into the specific, overflowing riches of a large Southern family, an immense foundation of love, active engagement, and a deep-seated sense of compassion.

To me, his wealth was always measured in the soulful, rowdy grace of that upbringing.

To Billy Bones, identity wasn’t a product of geography, but of resonance. Though he was raised in the heart of a Southern Baptist, musically-driven household, he did not allow himself to be molded by the rigid dogmas of the pulpit. Instead, he found his salvation in the spaces between the notes. He was not defined by the weight of religious expectation, but by the weightless freedom he discovered through sound.

One might hear “Southern boy” and immediately conjure stereotypes of country radio and Confederate flags, but Billy Bone’s story follows a different rhythm. It is a story of how a soul can be sparked by one culture and find its true home in another.

The first time he remembers “feeling” it was during a Sunday service. His grandfather was the minister; an honest, dignified man who preached a rare trinity of love, repentance, and acceptance. He stood in stark contrast to the performative hypocrites a young Will observed regularly in those chapel pews. When the soulful gospel harmonies finally swelled and vibrated against the wood of the benches, they hit him like an anvil. He felt like a cartoon character, dizzy, wide-eyed, with little birds twirling around his head in a melodic haze. Even then, quite young and small in that big room, he knew music wasn’t just a hobby; it was a part of his soul. It consumed him, making him believe in the “heavens above” more than any sermon ever could.

I didn’t truly understand the weight of that “anvil” until years later, when I met the man behind the pulpit myself. By then, Billy’s grandfather had lost much of his vision and mobility, but none of his spirit. He greeted me with a wide, lively smile, instantly dubbing me “Lil’ Zack Snack”—a playful nod to the Zaxby’s where Billy Bones and I had first met. Even through the fog of his fading sight, he could tell I was a “tiny little lady,” and he welcomed me with a kindness that felt like a warm hearth.

He passed away about a year later. I remember the air in the sunroom of the assisted living facility, that specific Georgia transition between the end of summer and the first breath of fall, where the sun feels heavy but the breeze carries a promise of coolness. Billy had brought me into the heart of this deeply personal grief, a gathering of his grandfather’s many children, a group so large and tuneful they were practically a church choir themselves.

In that room sat an old piano. When Will’s Uncle Roy began to play, the air changed. He started to sing a gospel tune from their shared childhood, and one by one, the siblings joined in. Then Billy B joined them. Even his frail grandmother, lost in her mourning, began to move her lips to the familiar rhythm. They harmonized with a precision and soul that I can only describe as spellbound.

I stood there with chills racing across my skin and tears blurring my vision. It was an incredible gesture of love that echoed through my entire body. In that moment, I understood that music was how God spoke to them; it was the medium for their most genuine love and kindness. I finally saw the source of the fire that had consumed Billy as a boy. The preacher man was gone, but the legacy of love he had nurtured remained, vibrating in the rafters of that sunroom.

This foundation—this deep, spiritual understanding of harmony—is what prepared Bones for his own musical awakening. It came during the “tween” years, that fleeting window when we still believed in the infinite possibilities of tomorrow. It was then he found a passion that would eventually drown out the hum of the Georgia pines: Reggae.It started as a vibration bleeding through his brother’s bedroom door. The album was 40oz. to Freedom by Sublime. It was his gateway drug, fueling him with a frequency he’d never felt in the choir loft. Once he took that first hit, there was no turning back; the sound couldn’t be unheard. It wasn’t just music; it was a heartbeat he recognized. His journey evolved rapidly, moving from the punk-infused sun of Sublime to the rhythmic precision of 311, and eventually to the roots of Bob Marley and Steel Pulse. The music and the man had become inseparable, fused together by a beat that started in Jamaica and found its soul in the North Georgia hills.