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John Travolta’s Touching Mother’s Day Tribute To Late Wife

I was thinking yesterday how as you get older, your perspective on holidays like Mother’s Day changes.  When you’re young (and if by the Grace of God) and you still…

John Travolta and Kelly Preston
Kevin Winter/Getty Images

I was thinking yesterday how as you get older, your perspective on holidays like Mother's Day changes.  When you're young (and if by the Grace of God) and you still have your mother, the thought of ever being without her never crosses your mind.  Scanning social media, I found so many of my friends, whose mothers I knew very well, posting Heavenly Mother's Day tributes.  It was sobering.  This led to another thought.  Mother's Day is the day where fathers like me, gushingly, pay tribute to the ladies who serve an invaluable and often thankless role in their children's lives.  Raising our son has been the pride and joy of Debbie and I's life together.  Emphasis here on the word, "together."  I cannot imagine celebrating a Mother's Day where my son's mother is not around.  That's a whole other kind of pain.  Which leads me to this amazing tribute from John Travolta to his late wife, yesterday.

John Travolta and Kelly Preston were a rare breed indeed:  a celebrity couple that stayed together.  Less than two years ago, Travolta lost his wife-too soon-to cancer at age 57.  The couple met in Paris filming the otherwise forgettable movie, "The Experts" in 1987, and were married in 1989.  Together, they had three kids:  Ella, Jett (who tragically passed away from a seizure in 2009 at age 16) and Benjamin.  Watching this video was both touching and heartbreaking, as I imagine Mother's Day is for widowers like John Travolta.  God bless all the mothers who touch our lives, and God bless those that they sometimes leave behind.

Charlie Nance is the Afternoon Drive co-host (along with his wife) of "The Charlie and Debbie Show" at WSOC, Country 1037 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The couple have been with the radio station since 2006. Charlie has won the prestigious CMA (Country Music Association) Award for Radio Personality of the Year and has been a finalist for the Country Radio Hall of Fame four times. Prior to his time in Charlotte, Charlie (along with Debbie) spent more than a decade hosting successful morning radio shows in Greenville, SC; Augusta, Ga; and Birmingham, Al. As a content creator for Country 1037, Charlie writes about dream lottery windfalls, sports, restaurants and bars, and travel experiences in North and South Carolina.