A Love of Music, A Letter to God,
and a Realization...Sensitivity is Heredity
and a Realization...Sensitivity is Heredity
A few days ago, I was going through some of Delaney's papers to file away. I learned from one of my smart, and extremely organized aunts, that when her two girls were going through school, in order to keep their papers organized, she devoted a filing cabinet drawer to each of them. This way, if they ever needed to refer back to something, they would always know where it was. I started doing this for Delaney, except in Rubbermaid file boxes. I was going through her preschool folder when I happened upon her handwriting book. It was a book they used to practice writing their numbers and letters. In the back she had written her first letter. It was to God, and being as he is extremely busy, she got right to the point. She simply said:
"Dear God,
Thank you for the beautiful music.
Love,
Delaney."
Now, Delaney loves a lot of things. She loves Boston Cream Donuts. She loves ballet, American Girl and playing hockey with her dad. But there is nothing Delaney loves more than listening to music. She has since she was in the womb. Music always seemed to have a calming influence over her, whether it was me singing to her (which is usually as calming as nails on a chalk board), or her falling asleep to the same song every night. A fun, up-beat song will have her dancing through the house. She loves everything from Broadway musicals (her current favorite is Popular and Dancing Through Life from Wicked), to John Lennon and Jimmy Buffet (obviously due to the ridiculous amount her parents play the two).
My almost 7 year old daughter is perhaps the most sensitive human being on the planet. She feels things to the core of her being. There is no guessing with Delaney. You know the minute there is something wrong. Her smile dissipates as quickly as the tears well in her crystal blue eyes. Many things can cause this to happen. A bug, ("one of God's creatures" as she refers to them), being crushed; a sad scene in a movie; a friend who is sad; However, nothing illustrates this point more than her reaction to music. Nothing can reduce her to tears faster than a sad song on the radio.
I remember when she was a baby, and we were trying to teach her to fall asleep on her own. She had a glow-worm that would play Brahms' Lullaby. She would cry the second it would start playing. I attributed it to the fact that she wanted to be held a little longer, or didn't want us to leave the room. When she was almost 2, she received the Fisher Price, Little People's doll house. She would cry every time we played with it. It took me a few times to realize that the crib in the house would play the same song. It immediately reduced her to tears. If we didn't touch the crib, she loved it. The second the song played, the tears fell.
My almost 7 year old daughter is perhaps the most sensitive human being on the planet. She feels things to the core of her being. There is no guessing with Delaney. You know the minute there is something wrong. Her smile dissipates as quickly as the tears well in her crystal blue eyes. Many things can cause this to happen. A bug, ("one of God's creatures" as she refers to them), being crushed; a sad scene in a movie; a friend who is sad; However, nothing illustrates this point more than her reaction to music. Nothing can reduce her to tears faster than a sad song on the radio.
I remember when she was a baby, and we were trying to teach her to fall asleep on her own. She had a glow-worm that would play Brahms' Lullaby. She would cry the second it would start playing. I attributed it to the fact that she wanted to be held a little longer, or didn't want us to leave the room. When she was almost 2, she received the Fisher Price, Little People's doll house. She would cry every time we played with it. It took me a few times to realize that the crib in the house would play the same song. It immediately reduced her to tears. If we didn't touch the crib, she loved it. The second the song played, the tears fell.
I did not see this reaction from her again for a while. It was pretty easy to steer clear of Brahm's lullaby. It isn't frequently on the radio, and is not a track on any of the CD's we own, nor is it on any of our playlists for any of the family iPods. One day, on a drive to the store, we were listening to our iPod. I had recently created a playlist for Delaney that included her favorite songs, as well as some that reminded me of her. Songs such as "Daughter" by Loudon Wainright III, were mixed in with Hot Chocolate from the Polar Express, and Carole King's rendition of the Itsy Bitsy Spider. "I Loved Her First", by Heartland came on, and the back seat was silent. I looked back, and tears were streaming down her face. "Tttttuuuurrrnnnnn iiiiitttttt offfffffffffffff! Puuuuullllllleeeeeeaaassseeee" she blubbered through her tears. I was shocked by the reaction to this song. She had never heard it before. She could not possibly comprehend what the song was about. What was it about this particular song that made her upset? Maybe it was just a mood.
I still remember the night I first heard the song "I Loved Her First" by Heartland. I literally had to pull over to the side of the road, my vision blurred by the tears that were uncontrollably streaming down my face. I have always been a sucker for songs about fathers and daughters, and this one is no exception. It is perhaps the sweetest song ever written about the love of a father for his daughter. I was sure that I was not the only woman on the planet that had this reaction to that particular song. I envisioned my husband swaying to this song with his baby girl on the day she got married, sweetly singing the lyrics so only she could hear them, and her remembering the days they shared as she was growing up, and finally realizing that she indeed is the center of his universe. I thought perhaps she would tear up as well. If she was anything like me, maybe a bit uncontrollable. I never, in a million years believed she would have this reaction before even beginning Kindergarten.
A few weeks later, her playlist had cycled through, and the song came on again. This time, she was in the middle of a conversation, and again, she immediately started crying.
"Tttttuuuurrrnnnnn iiiiitttttt offfffffffffffff! Puuuuullllllleeeeeeaaassseeee" came blubbering from the back seat. This was astounding to me. Again, she had only listened to a few bars of the beginning of the song. How is it that she knew it was such an emotional song?
I asked the director of fine arts at my school if he had ever seen a reaction to music like that. He explained that he had, from adults, but never from a child. He seemed to think that perhaps she had a connection with music. That her emotional connection was to the instrumental arrangement in a particular song, rather than the emotion from the lyrics.
I thought "hmmmm....perhaps...or maybe she is just as sensitive as her mom."
So from her father, Delaney gets her eyes, her athleticism, her ability to spell, and her love of John Lennon. From me she gets her math ability, her love of reading, and her ability to cry at the drop of a hat! Gotta love genetics!
I still remember the night I first heard the song "I Loved Her First" by Heartland. I literally had to pull over to the side of the road, my vision blurred by the tears that were uncontrollably streaming down my face. I have always been a sucker for songs about fathers and daughters, and this one is no exception. It is perhaps the sweetest song ever written about the love of a father for his daughter. I was sure that I was not the only woman on the planet that had this reaction to that particular song. I envisioned my husband swaying to this song with his baby girl on the day she got married, sweetly singing the lyrics so only she could hear them, and her remembering the days they shared as she was growing up, and finally realizing that she indeed is the center of his universe. I thought perhaps she would tear up as well. If she was anything like me, maybe a bit uncontrollable. I never, in a million years believed she would have this reaction before even beginning Kindergarten.
A few weeks later, her playlist had cycled through, and the song came on again. This time, she was in the middle of a conversation, and again, she immediately started crying.
"Tttttuuuurrrnnnnn iiiiitttttt offfffffffffffff! Puuuuullllllleeeeeeaaassseeee" came blubbering from the back seat. This was astounding to me. Again, she had only listened to a few bars of the beginning of the song. How is it that she knew it was such an emotional song?
I asked the director of fine arts at my school if he had ever seen a reaction to music like that. He explained that he had, from adults, but never from a child. He seemed to think that perhaps she had a connection with music. That her emotional connection was to the instrumental arrangement in a particular song, rather than the emotion from the lyrics.
I thought "hmmmm....perhaps...or maybe she is just as sensitive as her mom."
So from her father, Delaney gets her eyes, her athleticism, her ability to spell, and her love of John Lennon. From me she gets her math ability, her love of reading, and her ability to cry at the drop of a hat! Gotta love genetics!
