With A Song In Her Heart

Two of my dear friends, the Headmistress at the Common Room and the Queen at the Beehive, have each written recently about the place singing should have in our lives, and the place it has in our history. You can read their work here and here. Their writing has prompted me to think about an article I wrote a couple of years ago, after a wonderful conversation I had with my Mom. I share it here. The picture is of Mom (on the left) and her sister, and as always, you can click on the picture to enlarge it.


At the cottage, our family's vacation place on Lake Ontario, there is no dishwasher. And I'm glad.

My mother and I were standing at the kitchen sink washing and drying dishes after the evening meal this summer. Through the window, we could see the other family members playing on the lawn, fishing off the rocks, or gathering sticks for the nightly campfire. The usually noisy little house was quiet except for the clinking of glasses and plates, forks and spoons, and the off-and-on sound of the faucet.

There was a kind of feminine ritual to our actions, as mother and daughter synchronized the dipping of hands in and out of soapy water with the circular, wiping-dry motions of a dishtowel. It was a routine we had repeated thousands of times before, but now it was as two adults, two women who were also friends.

We joked about frequent times of trying to avoid this chore in our respective childhoods. And we laughed at the memory of my younger brother, then in his early teens, as he sat forlornly in a chair at the sink, slowly and reluctantly carrying out his turn at the dishes.

"My sister and I always sang when we did the dishes," Mom related. "Hymns, hit songs, whatever we liked at the moment."

Mom had told me of times when she, too, tried to escape her chores. I had heard of her desperate attempts to think of homework she had to finish, errands she needed to run, or even trips to the bathroom she would suddenly invent, in order to get out of doing the dishes. But I never realized that once she gave in to the task, she and my aunt sang the entire time.

I shouldn't have been surprised, though. I have heard my mother sing since I was a little girl - at home and in the church, and sometimes on the radio, and her duets with my aunt provide a musical score in my mind to all the important ceremonies of my life.

The sisters had a special harmony that made their two voices sound like three. And I knew this musical ability was discovered early, for Mom first sang in public when she was two years old. But I wanted to know more.

"Love songs were popular during the war," Mom began to tell, as she returned a clean plate to the cabinet shelf. "We were young girls then, and I can recall when my sister and my girlfriend and I would pack a lunch of sandwiches, grab a blanket, and head for the field by our house. We'd watch the train go by and sing "When It's Springtime in the Rockies," or "The White Cliffs of Dover," and dream of faraway places."

Mom smiled as she remembered going to someone's house and having to actually sing for her dinner, songs like "The Church in the Wildwood," and Stephen Foster songs like "Swanee River." And her face lit up as she talked about "listening to the radio every night - that was the big thing then...shows like "Hometown Frolics," and "Hit Parade"."

By the time Mom reached high school age, her family had gone through too many moves and some dramatic and difficult changes. Their home had split apart due to the ravages of alcoholism, and her father, after being away for five years, died when Mom was only 14 years old. The littlest sister of the family had to stay with relatives while my grandmother alternated between being a full-time nurse, and battling her own serious illness in the hospital.

At that time, Mom, her sister and their mother lived in a third floor room. It could not be called an apartment, even, for they had just one room that another relative let them use. Sometimes they had permission to use the kitchen, but most times they had to think of creative ways to eat snack food and keep it fresh. The window sill was a common place to keep milk cool at night.

The songs they sang in those years reflected an abiding trust in God, for they often sang together "Children of the Heavenly Father" (a song that came from their Swedish heritage), "Day by Day," and - in a high school assembly program - "The Holy City."

Even though they lived on very little, they managed with grace and style. Mom's laughter mingled with the soft clank of a stacking plate when she said, "I just missed being voted "Best Dressed" in high school! We always did our best to look neat and attractive, even though we were sharing the few clothes we had. I ended up being voted "Quietest," though," she added. "I can't imagine why - I really wasn't all that quiet!"

I turned on a light as darkness was entering the little kitchen. Our pile of dirty dishes was shrinking quickly.

"I remember I ran for student council secretary, too. I even had a campaign manager. Can you imagine that?" I forgot to ask if she won - because next Mom told me about the time she and my aunt were leaning out their third floor window, singing loudly to whoever would listen, "Ol' Buttermilk Sky."

The dishes were almost done. We had slowed our pace while we talked, not wanting the conversation to end. I carefully scrubbed the last two pots and pans over and over, trying to make our dishwashing time last longer.

Finally, we were finished, and Mom hung the dishtowel to dry as I wiped off the dishpan and put it away. She grabbed the marshmallows from the counter, and I told her I'd follow her in a minute.

By today's standards, Mom's would have been called a dysfunctional home. But my mother never saw herself as a victim, or as someone entitled to special privileges or sympathy. And in our ordinary dishwashing time, I found insight into her extraordinary yet simple secrets: faith in God, the love of a mother, and a song - always on her lips.

I slipped on my sandals and headed out the door, eager to join in the gathering reunion at the rocky beach of a family begun by the wonderful, enduring marriage of my mother and father.

And as I shut the screen door behind me, I heard a sweet sound and realized - I was the one who was humming this time.