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My good friend Billy Ray Cooper and I get together and sometimes share ideas for songs. One day he read me a poem he had found that was written by his late mother, Verda Grace Cooper, about her husband, the Reverend George W. Cooper. Now some may remember Reverend Cooper as the Hell-fire and brimstone preacher who could be heard on XERL AM from Del Rio, Texas broadcasting out of Acuna, Mexico from 1947-1974. "Border preachers" they were called.

In 1974, Reverend Cooper had been diagnosed and was dying rather suddenly from malignant melanoma. By his side as he was dying, Verda wrote of how even though his spirit was departing in death like a ship sailing away, she could still feel his love like a rope anchored to and tugging on her heartstrings. Billy and I wrote this song together and it is in the memory of the love shared between Verda Grace and George W. Cooper.