Alan Jackson's Daughter Mattie Announces Engagement Four Years After Losing Husband: 'Thankful'
Mattie Jackson Selecman, the daughter of country star Alan Jackson, has found love again, four years after losing her first husband in a tragic accident.
Mattie, 32, announced her engagement on Sunday to boyfriend Connor Smith, whom she first met in late 2021 through a close friend.
"Feeling overwhelmingly thankful, excited, and thrilled for this kind-of-surprise but so-fervently-prayed for ENGAGEMENT," she captioned an Instagram post showing off her ring. "I love your playful spirit and your kind heart and your infectious-ness for life, Connor Smith. I cannot wait to be your wife and build a family with you! You are the biggest blessing in the dang cutest package. Love you baby 😘"
Mattie, whom Jackson, 63, shares with wife Denise, and Smith were engaged in Palm Beach, Florida, where they'd traveled to celebrate Smiths' 30th birthday.
The happy news comes four years after Mattie's husband Ben Selecman died in September 2018 after slipping on a boat dock and hitting his head. The accident caused traumatic brain injuries for the 28-year-old Assistant District Attorney for Tennessee's Davidson County, and he died after undergoing multiple surgeries and an 11-day medically induced coma.
Mattie first announced her relationship with Smith in April, and said they'd met six months earlier at a happy hour.
"I have believed, prayed and claimed for 3 and a half years now that God would give me the chance to love someone with my whole heart again," she wrote on Instagram at the time. "Other dear widow friends assured me that my heart could heal and expand to love two people equally, though differently. And I hoped so desperately that would really be true."
She continued, writing that Smith was "more of an answer to prayer (mine and countless others!) than I sometimes think he even realizes," and that she "can't wait to see what this new chapter holds."
RELATED: Alan Jackson's Daughter Mattie Reflects on the Loss of Husband Ben in New Book 'Lemons on Friday'
Mattie opened up about her loss to PEOPLE in October 2021, just before the publication of her book Lemons on Friday. At the time, she said she struggled to process her emotions, but learned to lean on her faith to stay strong.
"The thing I was the most afraid of is this fear of, 'OK, am I going to leave our love behind? Am I going to forget and start to lose memories of things about him? Or, on a very practical level, how long do I leave my wedding ring on and how long do I keep all of our pictures up?" she said.
"[You have to] be brave enough to take new steps that feel very fragile and very scary. You don't know what your future is going to look like, but you also must believe that you can bring that person that you've lost with you. That never goes away. The hardest thing is learning how to juggle moving forward and creating pockets of your own life that are different, while also bringing their memories and their hobbies and their people with you. It's a strange balance, but it's one that is really sweet once you learn how to hold both at once."
