I remember exactly where I was when I heard the news, do you? I was standing in the living room at the parsonage in Michigan City, Indiana, along with Penny, a preacher's daughter from Atlanta. We were finishing up a 10-week stint as summer missionaries working for the Southern Baptist Convention.

If any summer defined my life it was the summer of 1977. I'd moved to Oregon from Georgia in 1975 and enrolled at Oregon State University that fall. I had 2 years of school behind me. I would return as a junior in a matter of weeks and, hopefully, to a yet-to-be-determined career path. I knew only one thing -- God didn't intend for me to be on the mission field in Africa or Asia. I could barely handle the backyard Bible Clubs in Gary & Portage.

"The King of Rock'n Roll is dead," said the news anchor, his voice unsteady.

Penny and I stood before the television set, still as boxes of Morton salt. We were both slack-jawed. Pastor and his wife sat on the edge of the couch behind us, craning to see the shots of Graceland, too polite to ask either of us to scooch over a bit. It was the first time during our stay that the television set had been switched on. 

My face felt hot. My palms sweaty. My heart marching. I was having my first full-blown panic attack, only I didn't know that then.

I walked down the narrow hallway and collapsed on the bed. Penny followed me, curling up next to me. We didn't speak. We didn't pray. We simply stared at the ceiling. Our world darkened by the death of yet another King.

This one even more real to us than the felt-backed Jesus we'd been teaching about all summer long.

I thought of sister Linda. She'd take Boots Randolph and Floyd Cramer and stick them back into their covers whenever Mama wasn't home. Then Linda would put three of Elvis' records on the turntable and let them drop and play, one right after another. It didn't matter that it was mid-July and hot as misery, we'd listen to Blue Christmas, over and over again.

Blue Suede Shoes.
You ain't nothing but a hounddog.
Peace in the Valley.

It didn't matter what Elvis sang, as long as he was singing the world was a better world.

I wanted to call Linda, to hug her, to cry with her the way we should have done when Daddy died. But it was 1977. There were no cell phones. No phone cards. No way to talk except collect and, unless I was bleeding to death, Mama would never accept the call.

So I stayed in the bed, the rest of the afternoon and into the next morning. Refusing dinner. Refusing to talk. Refusing to think of anything but poor Lisa Marie. I knew what terrors awaited her as a fatherless daughter. Mostly I longed for the long summer to end, differently.

When I woke the next morning the news was the same.

The hunk'a hunk'a burning love was dead.

But I was not the same.

When Elvis died, he left behind a legacy that would stay with me for the next several decades.

I didn't understand it till last night when I heard the interview between Priscilla (is it just me or does she look a lot like Morticia?) and Larry King.

They were standing in the foyer of Graceland, and Priscillas was chatting about the many times she stood at the curtains, waiting expectantly for Elvis' bus to pull up. It seems the King had a fear -- a fear of flying.

I never did.
Not until the moment when Elvis died.

For reasons unknown to me until now, Elvis' death left me totally terrified of flying. I don't mean just wobbly-kneed. I mean, "Git me home Lord Jesus and I'll never fly again," kind of scared.

I wrote about all this in my new book, Where's Your Jesus Now? But it wasn't until last night that I understood my fear.

The King was immortal. When he left this world, he left behind a piece of his soul to those that loved him.

I just got the piece that was scared all the time.