Backseat Benedictions Vol. 16

Music Travel Repeat → Backseat Benedictions: Music For A Road Trip → Vol. 16

Backseat Benedictions: Music For A Road Trip | Vol. 16 - Goodbye For Now D

There are losses that arrive like a car crash — loud, unmistakable, leaving nothing but wreckage and witnesses.

And then there are losses like this one.

Quiet.
Complicated.
Late.

The kind that doesn’t knock the wind out of you right away, but instead settles into your chest slowly, like a weight you didn’t know you were carrying until you tried to stand up.

My biological father died a few days ago.

His name was D.

He gave me up for adoption when I was two years old. I didn’t grow up knowing his voice, his habits, or his handwriting — not that there ever was any. He never learned to read or write. What I did grow up with, though, was a life he made possible by stepping aside.

I was adopted by a teacher(Mom) and by a great Dad. By people who gave me

stability
education
love

and a future. I am deeply — genuinely — thankful for that. I would not have the life I have today if D hadn’t made the choice he did.

That truth has always lived alongside the ache.

We reunited when I was in my late twenties. I wanted a relationship I didn’t yet know how to define, and he was carrying a grief that had already hollowed him out. Not long after we met again, his wife passed away. The loss shattered him. Drugs filled the space where language, healing, and accountability should have lived.

Our relationship became intermittent. On and off. Hopeful, then disappointing. The phone rang mostly when desperation needed money more than connection.

I tried to help.
I tried to step back.
I tried again.

Eventually, I learned what so many people with addicted parents learn too late or at great cost:

Love without boundaries is not love — it’s erosion.

All of my biological family has died of massive heart attacks. When D had his, it felt less like shock and more like inevitability. He spent the last month in hospice. Death slowed down just enough to sit with us. There was no dramatic reconciliation. No movie-script closure. Just the truth of who we were, and who we never became together.

That’s where this volume begins.

Not in denial.
Not in anger.

But in honesty.

This is Backseat Benedictions | Volume 16, built around “Goodbye For Now” by P.O.D. — a song that arrived again after he passed, and somehow said exactly what I couldn’t.

This playlist isn’t about pretending everything was okay.
It’s about naming what was real, and letting God hold the rest.

The Playlist

Backseat Benedictions | Volume 16 — Goodbye For Now

P.O.D. — “Goodbye For Now”

The anchor. A goodbye that doesn’t slam the door, but leaves it resting gently on the frame. Not forever. Just… not right now.

Switchfoot — “Dare You to Move”

For choosing life, forward motion, and healing — even when the past still aches. A song about stepping out of paralysis without pretending the pain didn’t happen.

Lifehouse — “Broken”

For relationships that mattered, even when they never healed.

Third Day — “Call My Name”

A prayer whispered after the anger burns itself out.

MercyMe — “Even If”

Faith that doesn’t depend on outcomes.

Creed — “With Arms Wide Open”

For complicated fathers and imperfect legacies.

Casting Crowns — “Who Am I”

For understanding identity beyond bloodlines.

Red — “Nothing and Everything”

Love and disappointment occupying the same space.

Skillet — “Those Nights”

Memories that show up without asking permission.

NEEDTOBREATHE w. Gavin DeGraw — “Brother”

For family — biological, chosen, and adopted.

Tenth Avenue North — “By Your Side”

For believing God stayed when people couldn’t.

Relient K — “Who I Am Hates Who I’ve Been”

For cycles that ended with us.

Newsboys — “We Believe”

For standing firm when certainty wavers.

Thousand Foot Krutch — “Courtesy Call”

For boundaries that saved your life.

Brandon Heath — “Give Me Your Eyes”

Compassion learned later than we wanted.

Jeremy Camp — “There Will Be a Day”

Resurrection without rushing grief.

Kutless — “What Faith Can Do”

Healing that doesn’t look like reconciliation.

Crowder — “How He Loves”

Grace that outruns addiction.

Jars of Clay — “Worlds Apart”

Loving someone you never fully understood.

We Are Messengers — “Magnify”

Praise in the middle of unfinished stories.

Chris Tomlin — “I Will Rise”

Hope that outlives hospice rooms and heart monitors.

for KING & COUNTRY — “God Only Knows”

For secrets God carried when you couldn’t.

TobyMac — “21 Years”

Grief doesn’t follow tidy timelines.

U2 — “Kite”

Letting go without pretending it doesn’t hurt.

Johnny Cash w. Sheryl Crow— “Redemption Day”

Mercy at the end of the road.

A Final Letter To D

Dear D,

You never learned to read or write, so maybe this letter was never meant for your eyes. Maybe it’s meant for the part of me that needed to finally say these words out loud.

You were my biological father.
You also gave me a life you couldn’t give me yourself.

Both things are true.

I forgive you — not because everything was okay, but because I don’t want to carry anger where compassion can finally breathe. I thank you — not for the pain, but for the choice that saved my future. I release you — not because you don’t matter, but because clinging won’t bring peace to either of us.

I believe God sees the whole story.

The addiction.
The grief.
The missed chances.
The unread letters.

I believe mercy doesn’t require

literacy
sobriety

or perfect timing. I believe you are held now in a way you never quite learned how to hold yourself.

This isn’t closure.
It’s acknowledgment.

Goodbye for now, D.

The Final Benediction

May you find peace without resolution.
May you forgive without rewriting history.
May you honor what was good without carrying what was heavy.
May God hold the ones you couldn’t save — and release you from believing it was ever your job.

I’ll keep driving forward.
I’ll live the life your choice made possible.
And I’ll let this be enough.

Catch You In The Chaos,
Haha Bailey

Written By Haha Bailey

Haha Bailey is the founder of Music Travel Repeat and the voice behind Backseat Benedictions. A lifelong protector turned storyteller, he writes about music, grief, faith, and the complicated relationships that shape us. Volume 16 was written in the wake of losing his biological father and explores forgiveness without closure, gratitude without denial, and saying goodbye without pretending it doesn’t hurt. Read more reflections, playlists, and letters from the road on The Restless, The Hopeful, and The Broken