Our Lifetime in Song

Dad (Bob), Nathan, and Mom (Paula)

I was driving home and chatting with my sister, Laura, when dad texted both of us from a doctor’s office at Emory. “Read it!” I commanded, since I was behind the wheel. Emotion overflowed as she read, “It’s benign! Susan, it’s benign!”

Three weeks of waiting had come to an end.

While relief flooded in, we knew a battle still lay ahead. And in less than a week, my mom will have surgery to remove a nasty growth in her mouth. I’ve seen it. It’s ugly. And depending on how far it’s grown, there’s a chance the surgeon will have to leave a hole in her soft palate, affecting her speech as well as her ability to sing.

This may sound odd, but the singing part troubles me most—and that from a forty plus year old who struggles to walk.

My family has been singing together for as long as I can remember. We attended First Presbyterian Church in Douglasville back in the seventies when the chapel and a small house were the only structures on the property. The small choir allowed youngsters like me to join. And one night as we drove home from a Wednesday night practice, my dad, mom, sister and I started singing what we’d gone over that night, the four part Hallelujah, Amen from Judas Maccabaeus by Handel.

Dad sang bass, and mom, soprano. Laura filled in with tenor, and me, alto. And there, in the confines of our rusty old Suburban, Dad’s love of barbershop found a new outlet—us—his family.

Soon, we huddled around the piano, learning barbershop tunes. We were never famous. But we sang everywhere we went: in the car, on the San Francisco Pier, on an island off the coast of Finland, in numerous Presbyterian churches across the US and as far away as Honolulu, and in the galley of airplanes when pilot dad knew the flight attendants on board.

As lead, I was often amused, while sister, the baritone, fought embarrassment. Much younger brother, Mark, well, he just sang whatever he felt like, creating more amusement than we knew till we videotaped ourselves years later—a few months before Laura left for college.

Tears fell as we tried to sing one last tune in our garage before driving her north to William and Mary. We feared the music was gone forever.

But a few years later, my mom, a vocal performance major, stood by the same piano and taught me Italian classics for my own college audition. Vanderbilt University offered me a scholarship and soon I was off singing opera as my voice teacher warned against the perils of barbershop—which reminds me that dad once had us sing for him in the Blair Recital Hall.

No place on earth intimidates barbershop dad.

After Mark grew and gave mom space and time, she auditioned for the Atlanta Symphony Chorus and has now sung and traveled with them for over twenty years, including performances in Carnegie Hall and Germany. And in recent years, she’s driven me to Athens several times to hear my oldest son perform as a voice student at the Hugh Hodgson School of Music. Just over a month ago, he sang the song mom taught me for my college audition during his junior recital. And I was there, reminiscing.

A few weeks later, our family gathered for a birthday celebration. My niece insisted we sing the one barbershop song everyone knows: A Spiritual Medley.  Mom, dad, sister, brother, brother-in-law, my two sons, a niece, and three nephews sang their part with feeling.

The music had multiplied and filled every heart in the room.

So it’s hard to imagine my mom not being able to sing—hard to picture a birthday gathering without her high soprano voice adding its unique harmony to our amazing renditions of Happy Birthday. But I’m comforted knowing that no matter what happens in the operating room four days from now, her song will go on and the voice that once comforted me with lullaby’s will not soon be forgotten.

“Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord…” (Eph. 5: 19)