Alan Jackson’s daughter lost her husband during a family trip when she was 28 years old.
She had been praying for years before she met the man who made her happy again. He asked her to marry him recently.
Alan and his wife of 43 years are very happy that their daughter is getting married.
Alan Jackson is a big name in country music, and his daughter Mattie just got engaged to Connor Smith. Mattie wrote in a post from November 14 that she had a great fall night with her favorite guy.
She posted a bunch of pictures, including one with her fiancé, another with her fiancé, her parents, Alan Jackson and his wife of 43 years, Denise Jackson, and a few more with other family members and friends.
“Perfect fall night with all my friends and my favorite guy. Before thanking her hosts, she wrote:
“6 months til forever, baby.”
Mattie’s engagement is a big step for her because she has come a long way to find happiness. This is because the 32-year-old woman lost the love of her life when she was only 28 years old.
How did Alan’s 28-year-old daughter lose her husband?
Mattie had been married to Ben Selecman for almost a year when something bad happened. The day that would change Jackson’s life began beautifully on the deck of his boat, where his family had gathered to celebrate Labor Day.
But the day also meant something more to Mattie and Ben. Also, it was their first wedding anniversary. When they were students at the University of Tennessee, they met, and Mattie fell in love with Ben’s big personality and happy, joyful spirit.
Mattie told People that she and her husband were still very much in love when he died too soon. She said, “We were still in the honeymoon phase of our life.”
But then, things didn’t go as planned. She remembers that Ben fell on a wet dock and hit his head. In the minutes that followed, Mattie kept hoping it was one of those times when someone fell, got up, and acted like nothing happened. This wasn’t one of those times, though.
Soon, it was clear that Ben’s fall might have hurt him more than just his head. After going to the emergency room, it was clear that something was wrong. Surgery came next, and then he was put into a coma by doctors for 11 days.
Ben’s heart began to fail less than a day later, and on September 12, 2018, he took his last breath. Mattie lost her husband when she was only 28 years old and had been married for only a year. It was a hard time for her, and the pain that came after was hard to imagine.
The next three years were full of ups and downs. But she chose to look on the bright side. She thought that her husband’s death was just part of life because, in her own words:
“I don’t think God chose for this pain to happen to me.”
Alan’s daughter tells the man who made her happy again about how she fell in love.
Her pain lasted a long time, but in the end, there was light at the end of the tunnel. In a long post about her now-boyfriend Smith, she wrote that she met him in the fall of 2021.