The Dying Man's Daughter

By Roy Exum · Friday, February 24, 2012

One of the most beautiful songs the world has ever known originated in Italy back in the late 1950s and it wasn't long before the haunting "Softly, I Will Leave You" was Americanized, flooding the charts as all the best singers of the day recorded it. Believe me, it is so wonderful that when Frank Sinatra died in 1998, his rendition was the lone song on his website for months.

Easily among my "top ten" songs of all time, my favorite version was sung by a guy not many have ever heard of -- Shaun Nielsen. He was actually the lead tenor of the group that backed up Elvis Presley and, one steamy night back in the '70s, there a handful of us were in Memphis when Elvis told the story behind the song. As "The King" spoke the words, Shaun -- a great gospel singer when he wasn't on tour with Elvis --sang in the background and it was the most moving performance I've ever witnessed, before or since.

The reason I bring the whole thing up is because of a man named Mark Augler. A Texan, Mark just celebrated his 50th birthday when he was diagnosed with colon cancer and, in 2011, was thought to be cancer free. But the dread disease came back and, his body now terribly weakened from chemotherapy and radiation, he developed pulmonary fibrosis and went downhill in a hurry.

His wife was eight months pregnant when he first suffered shortness of breath, was taken to the emergency room and learned that instead of being a survivor, he had a very short time to live. It appeared that Mark, age 52, would never get to see his soon-to-be-born daughter.

In the wonderful way that things sometimes work, doctors in Texas decided to induce labor in mid-January instead of waiting until the anticipated due date of Jan. 29. "Mark told me he'd like to see the baby, to hold her," his wife Diane told reporters. So on January 18 Diane gave birth to a child they named Savannah in a bed right next to her husband's in a birthing suite at a Plano, Texas, hospital.

The newborn infant was immediately passed to Mark and the couple cried as they held their newborn child together for 45 minutes. Three days later the new father went into a coma and was dead in another 48 hours. Death, of course, is a natural as birth but the fact Mark Aulger got to hold Savannah cuts real deep with me and, when I heard it, I thought of "Softly, I Will Leave You."

That night in Memphis, with so many packed in tight, Elvis -- who died in 1977 -- was sweating up a storm when suddenly he paused, wiping his face with a piece of silk, and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to share a story with you. This song has been around a long time but there is a true story behind it and, ladies and gentlemen, tonight I'd like to tell you that story.

"It seems there was there was this man in the hospital and he was dying. His wife had been sitting beside him for three days and three nights and sometime during the third day, she lay down beside him and dozed off to sleep. He felt her as she dozed off to sleep and, at the same time, he felt himself start to die," Elvis told the hushed crowd.

"He didn't want her to see him pass away so he reached for his notepad beside the bed and he wrote ..."

Right about then a lone piano began to play and with Elvis reciting the lyrics, Shaun began to sing them in a way the resulting duet would be nominated for a Grammy that year. It was the most magical moment you could ever imagine and I hope when little Savannah Aulger grows to be big and tall, she will one day hear the words:

"Softly, I will leave you softly

For my heart would break if you should wake and see me go

So I leave you softly, long before you miss me

Long before your arms can beg me stay

For one more hour or one more day

After all the years, I can't bear the tears to fall

So, softly as I leave you there



"Softly, long before you kiss me

Long before your arms can beg me stay

For one more hour or one more day

After all the years, I can't bear the tears to fall

So, softly as I leave you there

As I leave I you there

As I leave I you there."

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