Thank goodness he made it.
Willie Nelson has a new book, The Last Leaf: Reflections on Late-Life Creativity—and My Longest Love Affair, which is out everywhere today.
It of course focuses on Willie’s love affair with music, but also, is dedicated to the love of his life, his wife Annie, whom he still calls his “best friend for four decades.” He details meeting her in 1986 on the set of the movie Stagecoach, where she was working as a makeup artist, getting through COVID together and more.
He called her the “heroine” of this book, and he says the years he lived past that are “because of [her]”:
“The backbone of this book is a love story. The heroine is my wife, Annie, who kept me alive when I was sure I was gone. COVID nearly got me. I was hurting so bad I wanted out. But Annie wouldn’t let me go. The years I’ve lived since then are because of Annie. And so is this book.”
Because Willie’s hard fought battle with COVID is a focal point of the book, we get a lot of detail about what he was really going through in 2022, which included Annie having a makeshift hospital set up at home.
No 93-years-old, Willie was 89 during his COVID battle, and he writes about how much pain he felt throughout his body while he was sick. During the pandemic, the Nelson’s made a point to spend their time at home, at their ranch in Texas, but Willie still got sick.
Annie even had “protective clothing” for her trips to the grocery store, of coures she kept everything very clean, but sadly, it wasn’t enough:
“Annie wouldn’t let any of us leave the ranch.”
Willie got so sick that he wanted his wife to just “let me go,” but she wasn’t having it.
She told him that she would “kill [him]” if he died, bringing a
“Willie, if you die, I’ll kill you.”
Willie was quick to change his thinking on that, telling her:
“Don’t worry, I’ll be back in a minute.”
And he certainly was…
Annie writes some in the book, sharing her experience in being a caretaker, recalling trying to use oxygen to help him breathe to no avail:
“I had the nebulizer on you, and a Q-tip up your nose to test for Covid-19. I got the oxygen going to keep you breathing, but it wasn’t working. You still couldn’t breathe.”
Eventually, Annie got medication for Willie, and because she was concerned about Willie’s privacy and potential exposure to other germs and infections, and so that also played into her decision to have her husband treated at home.
She also writes about how hard it was to watch her husband in so much pain, just having to watching him suffer, understandably calling it the “worst thing” she’s ever had to do:
“Every labored breath caused you incredible pain. I wanted to do more, but I’d done all I could. I just had to sit there and watch you suffer. It was the worst thing I’ve ever had to do.”
As Willie puts it, the whole ordeal was “two weeks of utter hell,” and it was three whole weeks before he could get out of bed. But eventually, they were able to laugh again, and it was a moment when Annie knew Willie would “make it”:
“That’s when I knew you’d make it. I could feel it in your laugh. Somehow you reclaimed the will to live.”
Willie gives his wife all of the credit for him coming out on the other end of his COVID battle:
“I didn’t reclaim it. You gave it to me.”
It was two nights playing shows at Whitewater Amphitheater in New Braunfels, Texas, where he really felt like he was back to himself, and he remarked in the book that his “doctors were amazed” he was able to get up there and perform again.
It was two weeks after his recovery that he was back performing for fans:
“The doctors were amazed. I wasn’t amazed at all. My drive to get onstage and my drive to keep breathing were one and the same.”
He gives all of the credit to his wife:
“You saved my life, Annie.”
I mean, what an incredible love story…
The book is great so far, I’m still making my way through it, and the fact that Willie is still writing music, and books, as he approcahes his 94th year feels like nothing short of a miracle, and we owe a lot of thanks to Mrs. Annie for that.
