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.
Confidence Mama 