As the house lights dimmed, the sold-out crowd fell silent. Then came the sound no one was sure they’d ever hear again: Jackie’s deep, honeyed contralto—slightly raspier than in her prime, but radiating twice the soul—opening the first verse of their 1995 classic. When 49-year-old Susan joined in with her soaring soprano on the pre-chorus, the collision of their voices sent visible shivers through the audience.
Jackie’s handwritten lyrics rested on the piano—a necessary aid since her stroke damaged her short-term memory. At exactly 3:12, when Jackie’s voice threatened to crack on the bridge, Susan instinctively harmonized a third above—creating an unplanned chord that had congregants speaking in tongues. When Susan wiped a tear from her mother’s cheek mid-verse without missing a note, the image instantly became a meme captioned “When God’s Still Writing Your Testimony”
The most shocking reveal? We’ve obtained exclusive footage showing Jackie mouthing “This is for your daddy” to Susan during the final chorus—a reference to her late husband, whose funeral was the only other time Jackie had forgotten lyrics… until now.
