May 6, 2008...10:12 am
Mother’s Day: A Song for the Heart
Mom sang all the time! And when she wasn’t singing she was doing what I call a hum-whistle. If she was doing dishes, laundry or any assortment of household chores that required more muscle and air, that’s when the hum-whistle would do. A hum-whistle sounds very much like air pushing through one’s lips but you can recognize the tune. I loved hearing my mom hum-whistle or sing. When she did sing, she loved to give the melody to someone else so she could harmonize. Families used to sing for their own entertainment, whether it was around the family piano or just a cappella. We didn’t have a piano or anyone who knew how to play, so a cappella was our tradition. Mom’s parents both sang. The folklore says that Grandma Sylves had a beautiful, almost operatic soprano voice and she sang at various churches when she was a younger lady. Grandpap Sylves, Big Jim, sang for his own amusement and the amusement of his children and grandchildren. As children, we never heard our grandmother sing, but we listened to and sang with our grandfather all the time. He knew all sorts of ditties including, Ol’ Dan Tucker, The Preacher and the Bear, Sally Dear, K-K-Katie, Ja-Da, Ja-Da, 5’2 Eyes of Blue and on and on. As I got older, I became aware of how just much singing we did as a family when compared to others and this was most apparent at the wakes that followed the funerals of family. As an extended family, we’d sing everything and one family member or another would take the lead on a song. We’d start out with all the funny ditties we all knew and loved and then gradually gravitated to the spirituals and hymns that meant so much. Mom loved spirituals, so she taught us “Ezekiel Saw the Wheel,” “Wade in the Water,” “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” “Nobody Knows the Trouble I See,” “Steal Away” to name a few. But she also loved gospels and hymns as well. So, “Just a Closer Walk With Thee,” “Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” “In the Garden,” “The Old Rugged Cross,” are just a sample. By the time we left the wake, tummies full and spirits lifted, we felt soothed and full in ways that are not easily explained. To follow the singing in the family a little further, in the later portion of winter and early Spring of 1985, my mom’s Aunt Beulah was dying of emphysema. Mom came back from California where she was living to help in Aunt Beulah’s care as she was a licensed practical nurse. And Mom cared for her at the hospital and at Aunt Beulah’s home. Aunt Beulah passed in April. And of course we had the wake. As we were given to do, we all sang our hearts out between heaping plates of food. At a certain point, Mom comments, “Ah-h-h-h my. This does my heart good. When I go, I hope the Lord sends me out singing, just like that!” None of us thought anything of the comment other than to think about how mom was reflecting on the fullness of her spirit. Five months later and just after a wonderful visit that my wife and children had made to California to see my mom and dad, I received a phone call from my brother, Dan. He called to tell me that the doctor told him to call everyone in the family and let them know that Mom was dying and she didn’t have much time left. In fact, we needed to get on a plane immediately if we wanted to see her before she died. Of course, I could not believe it. I called the doctor the next morning and what Dan had said was true. She had contracted some rare blood disease and all her organs were shutting down. So, all the siblings, Diane, Jim and myself took the next plane we could get on that same day and joined Dan, Tammy and our dad at the hospital. I had my first opportunity to see Mom and she was already on a respirator, jaundiced and swollen and unconscious. We all prayed together but I knew it wouldn’t be long. As I stood in the ICU with my mom, I instinctively began to stroke her hair just above her forehead. Now this sounds like a very caring gesture until you recall that my mom hated anyone to stroke her hair. She said in years past that it felt annoying when people did it and it was not soothing to her the way people intended it. Well, in the seriousness of the moment, I forgot about this idiosyncrasy. My perception of her is that she was unconscious, but as I stroked her forehead with my hand, all of a sudden she shakes her head as if to tell me to “Stop it!” Here is my mom on her deathbed and she musters up what little strength she has to communicate to me to stop engaging in her version of Chinese water torture. This must say something about how little moments of humor can be embedded even in tragic circumstances. What this experience did was clue me into my mom being more aware than I had thought. I wanted to do something to soothe her and comfort her. And then I remembered what she had said at Aunt Beulah’s wake. And I began to sing to her. I worked my way through song after song after song all of which were spirituals and hymns. I sang the spiritual “Steal Away” very slow and deliberate.
Steal Away, Steal Away,
Steal Away to Jesus,
Steal Away, Steal Away Home,
I ain’t got long to stay here.”
My Lord calls me,
He calls me by the thunder,
De trumpet sounds within-a my soul,
I ain’t got long to stay here.
Steal Away, Steal Away,
Steal Away to Jesus,
Steal Away, Steal Away Home,
I ain’t got long to stay here.”
Occasionally, when I sang, a tear would trickle down from her eye following the crease between her nose and cheek. When these few tears came, I thought to myself, some of this was getting through.
A spiritual is such a powerful expression of the deep groans for pain we feel. This was my mom’s pain at leaving this world so early at 54 years of age, confused by what was happening and not wanting to abandon or be abandoned by all those that love her. It also captured my groans as I prepared to let go of a deep connection, a connection of sustenance.
Mom passed away not too long afterwards. I believe that even though her lips didn’t move and voice could not be audibly heard, she sang with me.
Our family singing doesn’t end there. Of course, I sang to my children and included many of the same ditties my Grandpap and mom sang to us. I’ve sang solos at weddings and churches and participated in church choirs. When I successfully defended my dissertation at the University of Southern California in November of 1995, when I learned of my passing, I sang a cappella to my committee. I sang “Ol’ Dan Tucker” in memory of my grandfather and the Spiritual “Wade in the Water,” to acknowledge my mom and our faith heritage. This past year the chair of my dissertation committee, who still happens to be at USC, communicated to me in an e-mail, “I still recall that yours is the only dissertation defense at which ended with a song.”
I sing every day, maybe not a hum-whistle but a song nonetheless, sometimes a ditty and other times a spiritual or hymn. Thank you, mom!
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