About Darin Kinser

“If there was ever a song that told my family’s story, it is ‘Garden of Stone’ written by Gerald Reeder,” says Darin Kinser.  “As soon as I heard the lyrics, it was as if Gerald knew my parents and was writing their biography.  I knew I had to record it.”

They grew up in hard times

Both raised dirt poor

She worked in the factory

He fought in the war

‘til death do us part

Were the words that were said

On the day that Mama and Daddy were wed.

Darin continues, “Though my dad never went to war, all of the other lyrics were my parents’ story exactly.”

Darin says the night the song was previewed on Facebook as a demo, it broke his heart, but more than that, it told his story.

Darin’s mother went to a strict fire and brimstone preaching church with her best friend.  His dad had been raised in church, going with his grandfather as a boy.  His parents loved each other fiercely.  

In 1995, Darin’s dad told everyone he loved them, walked into the bedroom, put his hands across his chest, looked toward the ceiling, and passed away.  They would later learn it was a massive heart attack from blocked arteries.  Darin was thirteen at the time.

“They were married twenty-one years in June, and Daddy passed in January,” Darin shares.  “My mother grieved his loss for the next twenty-two years.  She never went out of the house other than to visit her mom or his grave.  Most of the time, she just sat in her bedroom.  She would occasionally come out to the dining room to get something to eat but go right back to the bedroom to sit and stare.” 

Darin says his mother would frequently say, “I don’t know why he left here without me!”  She longed to be with him, so much so, her life seemed to stop when his did.  

Darin’s mom succumbed to stage four breast cancer twenty-two years after his dad passed away.  She spent fifty-eight days in the hospital and was given three months to live.  She exceeded that time but was in Hospice a week before she finally was able to be reunited with her husband.  

Dad worked the night shift,

Mama, she worked days

Raised up us boys 

On a mill worker’s pay

Mama made the biscuits

Daddy mowed the grass

Raised gardens and grandkids 

Till the day that he passed

Now he lies in a garden, 

A garden of stone

Where the rows they are straight

And the rows they are long

Mama’s eyes grew weary 

From the tears that she cried

And Mama stopped livin’

On the day Daddy died.

Sad words for sure, but somehow Darin found comfort in the lyrics Gerald Reeder had written and brought them to life in his emotional recording of the song.  Darin wants others to know that no matter how hopeless a loss may feel, “we do not grieve as others who have no hope.” I Thessalonians 4:13. He has hope his mother and father are reunited and knows he can go see them one day.  In the meantime, he places flowers in the garden of stone and remembers the love they shared.  

Darin is available for interviews or station liners at: 812-276-9240.