Posted on by katieovergard

Goodnight, My Angel

When my parents would load their three girls into the minivan for a road trip, they would pack the essentials: snacks, books and a detailed and unbreakable plan of who got to sit where, when. There were no iPads or iPods or Mp3 players or even discmans for a long time. We listened to whatever music was playing over the van speakers. Luckily, my parents had impeccable taste in music and raised their daughters on the classics – Cat Stevens, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Elvis, The Righteous Brothers, on and on. We stared out the window at the passing landscape singing together, all five of us.  Under the Boardwalk never sounded so good.
 
We ate dinner together every night. We sat around the teak table at the seats we always chose. One of us would turn the dial to the jazz station on my dad’s big fancy stereo while the other two sisters would help set the table. We would light candles and talk and eat artichokes and laugh, all with the background of John Coltrane and Dave Brubeck.  
There was one song though, one song that was never allowed to be played.  One song we never belted out in the car or danced to after dinner.
Lullaby, by Billy Joel.  If those piano notes floated out of the speakers we were instructed to change the song immediately.  I didn’t understand back then, why a lullaby made my mom cry.  I just knew it was urgent to get that song out of our house, away from my mom’s ears as quickly as possible, before the tears filled her eyes.
Goodnight, my angel, time to close your eyes…but mom, what’s so sad about going to sleep?
Wherever you may go, no matter where you are, I never will be far away…but mom, who is going away? Who is leaving?
And like a boat out on the ocean, I’m rocking you to sleep…but mom, why are you crying so hard?
You don’t play that song for parents who are terrified that they might lose their little girl.
Someday we’ll all be gone, but lullabies go on and on.  They never die, that’s how you and I will be.
You don’t let that song play and expect a mother to take her daughter to chemotherapy the next day.  You can’t play that song and expect a father to insert a needle, much larger than she should ever have to see, into his daughter’s hip, listening to her screams of pain  knowing that it will help her stay alive.
I can close my eyes and see us packed in the minivan, the wind whipping through our hair, my mom and dad harmonizing in the front seat, my sisters and I learning the words to Jeremiah was a Bullfrog as we drove through Santa Fe.  The happiness floating through the seats, resting on our voices.  When we had nothing to be afraid of.
And now I’m a mommy.  And I can listen to the song, but not without the tears gathering behind my eyes.  Not without reminding myself how lucky I am to have each second I do with my children.  I listen to that song and I can picture my mom crying, curled up on the floor of her closet, because she didn’t want any of her daughters to see how sad and scared she was.  I put myself in her place and wonder where she and my dad found the strength to get through to the next day.  I wonder how she picked herself up off the floor of the closet and made dinner and took us to soccer practice and made sure Thayer’s medications were all organized and taken when needed.
The water’s dark and deep inside this ancient heart, you’ll always be a part of me.
But they did it.  And still do it.  They still worry about her survival, they still hold her hand as she lays in her hospital bed.  They still gently brush her hair from her forehead as she sleeps.  And they still sing in the car, windows down, singing Eric Clapton, throwing their voices into the wind and smiling at the sun on their faces.  It is because of them, of their influence, that we all sing.  We sing through the pain and the fear and the frustration.  We sing when we’re happy and when we’re eating and we sing in the car without caring who sees us.
Because it reminds us to live.  So when you see me (or hear me) singing, let me sing. Or join in.  Or sing your own song.  Let the wind carry your voice and find the joy you need to get to the next day.  Just don’t sing Lullaby in front of my mom.
Posted on by katieovergard

Daddy’s Girl

She looks down at him as she floats in the air, his eyes bright and that goofy smile on his face as he makes flying noises.  He bends his arms and she starts to fall, her stomach flips from the motion but before she knows it, she is tucked in his arms, warm and safe.  He sits on the couch and kisses her forehead, smelling her head as he always does, then picks up the TV remote.

What he doesn’t know is that the little girl in the crook of his elbow will grow up with him as her baseline for what a man should be.  He doesn’t know that how he treats her will help her determine how she will allow other people to treat her.

He doesn’t know his power.

The little girl grows up, little by little every day and she listens.  She listens when he gets home from work and leans down to kiss her on top of her head and tells her that he missed her while he was away.  She listens when he tells her mom that he loves her and that he loves the way she looks when she wipes her make up off at the end of the day.  When she puts her puzzle together, she listens when he tells her how impressive it was to watch her figure it out all on her own.  When he tucks her in at night, she listens as he tells her stories of what she can be when she grows up.  She pictures herself as an astronaut, or the president, or an inventor.  She believes him when he says she can be anything because she is creative and smart and goes after what she wants.

She’s taller than she used to be.  Sometimes she does things that her dad isn’t proud of, but when it happens she’s not afraid of him.  She doesn’t fear what he’ll do when he finds out – she just doesn’t want to disappoint him.  When her mom tells her dad what she did (because she kept finding ways around it) he looks at her for a long time.  She can tell that he is not proud of her in that moment, but when he speaks it is calm.  He asks her why she did it.  He wants to know what she was thinking about when she made the decision to do what she did.  He wants to understand her.  After she explains herself, he tells her what is expected of her, and that he knows how smart she is and that he hopes that the next time she will make better choices.

She is playing in the yard and hears her dad making noise.  She rides her bike to the edge of the garage and he sees her as he clamps a piece of wood onto his work table. He smiles and beckons her over so she can see what he’s doing.  So he can share it with her.  She learns how to use tools and that she has a knack for woodworking.  He takes her with him when he needs to buy a grill.  She cuddles in next to him on the couch and eats popcorn out of his bowl as he answers her constant questions about the game he’s watching on TV.  He explains it to her and she loves it, they start watching together every weekend.

She waves goodbye from her date’s car, her mom and dad silhouetted in the open front door.  She has had a crush on him for a long time and gazes at him across the table as he talks about his last game and how he scored the winning run.  She smiled at him when he talked about building a shed in the backyard with his uncle.  She tells him how he built a deck with her dad.  He looks at her, surprised.  After the date, he pulls into her driveway and she says thank you, her hand on the door handle.  He reaches over and puts his hand behind her head, pulling her in for a kiss she’s not ready for.  She frowns, put her hand between her face and his and says, “thank you for the date.  I’ll see you at school.” Then she gets out of the car and walks inside her house.

Her dad closes the curtain he was spying through as he watches his baby girl stand up for herself and walk proudly into their home.  He gets tears in his eyes remembering what her head smelled like when she was tucked into his elbow and how she would giggle when he held her high in the air, her little body barely bigger than his hands.

She sneaks up behind him and wraps her arms around her dad’s belly and gives him a tight hug.  “Thanks Dad.”  He hugs her back and asks, “for what?”

“For teaching me how to fly.”