Nobody's Darling But Mine - Jimmie Davis

My brother was reminiscing about days from his childhood and remembers how our dad used to play the ukulele and sing to our mom.  This is special because many of the memories of our childhood some would say were, not so great.  Mom was trying to hold the family of eight children together with very little money, bills and a husband who was inconsistent.  There definitely were hard and many sad times, but in the midst of the trouble there were very special and wonderful memories as well.  My parents loved each other even though they divorced because of my father's irresponsibility and his drinking.
See my dad was an alcoholic but through much prayer and finally repentance, he changed.  He went to treatment (again as he had done several times in the past.  This one was a six week program) but he was there for nine months.  (It took him a bit longer to unwind his messed up thinking and acknowledge his mistakes than most, but he stayed and dealt with his issues.)  His counselor told him how he should just move forward knowing that he didn't deserve his wife and family back as he had caused so much damage from his behavior. The incredible part of their story was my dad finally understood his failure and he came to my mom and repented of ALL he had done to destroy their family and marriage and he acknowledged how he didn't deserve her love but wanted her to know that he would always love her.  This was the first time in all the years they were married that my dad owned his issues toward my mom and he didn't blame her, the boss, the government, no one but himself.  This was a "new" perspective for my mom and she knew something had changed.  She had never seen this side of my dad.  She forgave him and accepted his apology and they began to date again.  Shortly after that, they remarried.  See, God can fix ANYTHING!

Life is a choice and we can choose to dwell on what is (or was) wrong or we can choose to focus on whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is ANY excellence and if anything worthy of praise, DWELL on these things. (Philippians 4:8)  We each have to decide what we are going to hold in our hearts.  We choose to lock or unlock our hearts!

See my brother chooses to remember the good times as we were kids and in doing so he found this song.  He too used to play the ukulele and recently decided to pick it up again.  He and his friend (who plays guitar) have been playing every evening and then remembered this old song my dad used to play and sing to my mother before the divorce.  See my parents did love each other, they just had to learn how love should act toward one another.  In this world of easy divorce and quick turn-arounds, we all could stand to give those people who we think are too far gone another chance if they, like my dad, show that they have changed.

With some help from the Internet, they found the chords and the words to the old song, Nobody's Darling But Mine and he sent me the link.  In talking to a few of the siblings, he asked if they too remembered the song as my dad would sing it to my mom.  Of course they did and it brought back great memories of days gone by.

Nobody's Darling But Mine - Freddie Stewart (3/25/1925 - 8/15/2000) sings in this version. 
Nobody's Darling But Mine - Guitarist.  This could be how my dad sounded.
Nobody's Darling But Mine - Merle Haggard.  I share this link because Merle's voice was similar to my father's minus the heavy southern accent.
Nobody's Darling But Mine - Rosemary Clooney.  I put this link because my dad loved Rosemary's voice and I think he would like hearing her sing it again.
Nobody's Darling But Mine - The Whitstein Brothers.  This was just a great rendition of the song.