Song of the Heart

Mom's favourite picture.

There is a line from a Joe Diffie (yes, I’m a country music fan) song that goes:

Home was a back porch swing where I would sit, 

And mom would sing Amazing Grace, while she hung out the clothes.

That line reminds me of my own Mom.

Mom was always singing. The first thing she did when she entered the kitchen in the morning was switch on the radio.

And hum along with the current favourites while she stirred up breakfast.

Later, radio off; I can picture her with her hands in hot, soapy water, belting out ‘Darling Clementine’.

Or hoeing in the garden to ‘Till We Meet Again’.

It’s amazing how ‘Amazing Grace’ or any number of other songs go along with milking the cows. The rhythm just works.

Folding clothes? That will always remind me of ‘You Are My Sunshine’. When she could convince one of us to join her, sung in two-part harmony.

‘Let Me Call You Sweetheart’ was waltzed with the broom across the kitchen floor.

And what would pea-shelling and bean-snapping be without ‘My Easter Bonnet’?

And early morning without ‘Good Morning, Mary Sunshine’?

Or bedtime without ‘Irish Lullaby’?

Riding out to the cows inevitably brought a rendition of ‘The Old Grey Mare’.

And evenings with the family - at least one chorus of ‘Whispering Hope’, again in harmony.

There are dozens more. I can’t picture Mom without a song in her heart and on her lips.

And her kids all do it, too.

Sing, I mean. While working.

More than once, I got smacked on the back of the head for bursting into song at inappropriate times during school.

Oops.

It’s been too many years since I heard my Mom sing.

But in my memory, she’s singing still.

The last lines from that same Diffie song are totally appropriate for me: My footsteps carry me away. But in my mind, I’m always going home.