Songs in the Dark

Words to carry

“You’re going to sing to us, right?” Wyatt asks as I switch off the light at the foot of the bunk bed where they sleep and switch on the little lanterns that hang from the top bunk. He and Annalee have their own rooms, bunks in each, so there is no shortage of beds. They war all day, but always, when darkness falls, they have to be close enough to hear the other breathing. With lives that have meant their view changes faster than a turning kaleidoscope, they have been one constant for each other. So for now, this is what works to get everyone to sleep. 

“Of course!” I reply, crawling into the bottom bunk next to Annalee and tugging the comforter up over our shoulders.

Without a doubt I can tell you that mine is not the greatest voice. But I can carry a tune and stay on pitch and most of all, I love music. As an avid fan of musicals, one of my core beliefs is that the world would be a better place if we all sang what we were feeling, what we wanted people to know. 

And this is what I want my kids to know.

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Before I had any of them, when my children were distant and wild dreams, I collected songs, memorizing everything I wanted to tell those tiny humans someday.

When I was pregnant with Jayna, my first, I sang “Baby Mine” from the movie Dumbo. As the months passed and she lay with her wispy blonde head tucked under my chin, her ear against my heart, I sang The Carpenters’ “Close to You” and Bob Dylan’s “To Make You Feel My Love,” and drew from my obsession with The Sound of Music with “My Favorite Things” and “Edelweiss.” Before long, there were two little blondes snuggled next to me. Sleep had to come as a surprise to the independent and ever-so-busy Skyler. But when I sang, it always did. 

With Lilly, though, I had to limit the nightly playlist to four songs. I could sing every quiet, soothing song I knew–heartfelt 80’s love ballads, Gershwin tunes, quiet hymns, folk songs I learned in elementary school choir, even an ever-slowing rendition of “The Wheels on the Bus.” I scraped the very bottom of the barrel most nights, and still she would rouse herself at the last notes of the last song to beg for “just one more.” That’s also when I divided up my repertoire, singing only particular songs each night of the week. 

But now, with Wyatt and Annalee, the playlist has grown again. Last year, in the midst of our move to Seoul, Wyatt had the worst time falling asleep. Every night was a battle with lots of tears (mostly mine, a few of his) and growing frustration. Then I heard Keith & Kristyn Getty’s song “Lily in the Valley,” and it became the first song, every night. We sing it together.

More often than not, Wyatt and Annalee sing all the songs with me now. I used to shush them when they were smaller and tell them it was time to close their eyes, not sing. “Mommy’s turn only.” But I remembered this is what I want even more than for them to be lulled into a deep, sweet sleep; I want these words to be embedded in their hearts. Since singing helps us memorize, and since they’re growing so fast, it feels like a race against time.

”You Are My Sunshine” was on the original playlist, but it has been banned. I was singing it to Lilly one night when she was four and baby Wyatt was in my arms. Her little voice interrupted me in the darkness.

“Mommy? Can you not sing that any more?” she asked. “It makes me too sad.”

I thought about the words I had just sung, and wow. She was right! How had my kids let me sing it for so long? 

But somehow, Dylan’s “You Belong to Me” was permitted to stay. Maybe it’s because my kids are obsessed with The Amazing Race, and the lyrics about exotic locales keep them–or set them–dreaming.

I sing these words, wishing they were true, knowing they never really have been. Kids don’t actually “belong” to parents. Jayna and Skyler are bonafide adults now, older than I was when I got married, building careers, relationships, and lives of their own. Lilly has already started to do so much  without me. She doesn’t ask for my songs any more or sit on the floor to listen as I sing to her siblings. 

I dream of my babies (who are now taller than me) being close enough to reach, and when I wake up and remember they aren’t, there’s a hollowness in my chest like someone reached in and extracted my heart. I lie in the darkness of night and worry for them, so far from my watchful eye, my “mama bear” instincts. Recalling the hand sanitizer I made everyone use before they held newborn Jayna, I wish everything were that simple–that I could just give them a lotion that would protect them from all the hurt and danger in the world. But at the same time, I love seeing their own stories emerge, learning of how they’re touching the world in their own ways and saying, “I was here.” 

The words of Margaret Wise Brown, in one of my favorite children’s books The Runaway Bunny, are far more accurate.

“‘If you become a fisherman,’ said the little bunny, ‘I will be a bird and fly away from you.’

‘If you are a bird and fly away from me,’ said the mother bunny, ‘I will be a tree that you come home to.’” 

So I wait, thousands of miles away from two of them, closer to the other three, my branches ready for them to land any time they need rest or assurance of my love, just as they always will be as long as I am standing. 

//

I’ve sung all the songs tonight when Annalee asks, “Mommy, can you sing ‘Amazing Grace’?”

“It’s late, sweetheart, and that’s not one of tonight’s songs,” I tell her, deeply wary of the “one more song” trick. I don’t want to get sucked into another sing-a-thon like I did when Lilly was little. 

“Just one more? Just that one? Pleeeeeaaase?” 

“I’m so tired, though.”

“Pleasepleasepleaseplease.” 

I feel myself caving and sigh. “Okay, fine.” I begin to sing. 

“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound…” 

The truth is, I need this rhythm as much as they do, this benediction. Singing these songs mends the wear of the day, weaves us back together and makes us whole again. Just as my voice pulls them to slumber, their deep, slow breathing calms me. Suddenly, as happens more these days (hello, 40’s!), I realize I’ve dozed off in the middle of a verse. 

“It’s okay, Mom,” Wyatt is saying mercifully. “You can go. You don’t have to sing any more.” Annalee snores softly beside me. This is what I want–what I’ve wanted since before I knew any of my children: for them to know these words so well that even when we’re apart and I’m not close enough to hold them, even when the shadows loom and linger, even when my voice is gone, they’ll remember. They’ll be the ones singing into the darkness.

“No, no,” I tell him, shaking myself awake. “I’ll finish the song. Let’s see, where was I?”

I sing again, that grace has brought us safely here and grace will lead us home.

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This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "Words to Carry".