Vince Gill was in Kentucky on the way to his Nashville home the first Saturday in May when he heard the weather was too treacherous for him to finish the drive. He stayed put and by the time the Country Music Hall of Famer made it home, much of Middle Tennessee was under water.
It was the cap on a week that was already full of heartache — Gill’s wife Amy Grant had lost a family member in Afghanistan on Thursday, and on Friday, Gill’s good friend Will Owsley died of an apparent suicide.
The days that followed were packed with surveying damages, funerals and a wedding: Gill’s oldest daughter Jenny was set to get married at his home the Saturday after the flood. Looking back, Gill said, he was able to see the beauty in all of it.

