By Aimee Stewart
This concert experience was quite different from the Boca concert, for those who have read about that :O) All of Cynthia's concerts are incredible, but there was something about this time that I will never forget. For those of you who have not been to a concert by Cynthia, I would encourage you to go anywhere possible to see her :O)This experience started very early (5am) on February 21, 1999. I drove from my home in West Palm Beach, FL, to Naples, FL. Cynthia was scheduled to sing in all three worship services at the First Presbyterian Church of Naples, and I planned to attend them all :O) I arrived just in time for the first service at 8:30. (No being late this time LOLOL :O) ) She was also performing two concerts that evening, so I would be about as close to Heaven as I could be on this earth!
I sat on the second row, right in front of the microphone, and waited for Cynthia to come out. She came out at last, just as the service started. It was so wonderful to see her, but she didn't see me right away. When we stood up to sing a song, she turned around to put her papers on the pew, and I said hello, and she smiled at me!
I was estatic! I could barely hide my excitement. A silence came over the room as she went up on stage. She sang "Softly and Tenderly," a very beautiful arrangement of it. Everyone was silent as she sang, and she left the stage with everyone in the room wanting her to sing again. At least I wanted her to sing more :O)She left after her song to go in the back of the church, so I did not get to see her untill the next service started. I had brought some emails for her to read, and a necklace with a charm with her birthstone I had brought for her. I put them on her seat, and she picked them up when she came back out. She stayed for the whole service this time, and I should have sat beside her, but I stayed right behind her. She sang the same song in the second and third services, and I was entranced the whole time. I left after she sang in the third service, to go run an errand.
I decided to come back to the church when it was time for the third service to be over, just to see if I could talk to Cynthia for a minute. They were closing the doors to the church, but they told me that Cynthia was still in the church, so I stayed in the building to wait for her. All of a sudden she came out with Craig Johnson, her accompianist, and they decided to go ahead and do soundcheck. I stayed on the second row, and was able to watch and hear the whole rehearsal! I was so excited! She sang several songs, and the last one was "It won't Rain Always," which she dedicated to Judy Talafuse. She smiled at me several times, and I melted!I left after the soundcheck to do another important errand. I went to buy some M&M's for Cynthia, and call Judy and Marylynn. I reached Judy, and we were both so excited we could hardly stand it! I wrote out a card for Cynthia and put the M&M's in the envelope with it. Finally it was time to head back to the concert for the first concert!