See, there was this Sesame Street episode...
I remember a song. It didn't have an official name. But I always thought of it as "Be My Echo." It was from an episode of Sesame Street, when Madeline Kahn guest-starred. She sang the song with some of the Muppets: "Be my echo, sing what I sing, follow the leader and sing after me!" Madeline would sing different vocalises, some simple, some more advanced, and the Muppets would echo her.
Mom spent a lot of time teaching my sisters and me that song. She kept it simple for us at first, then gradually taught us more complex things, like runs, octave jumps, and harmonies. But there was this one run in the song that we simply could not mimic. Mom would sing the beginning of it, "Fiddle diddle dee," and then suddenly take off on this fantastic roller coaster of pitches, flying up and down, adding trills and triplets up in her high range. We usually would sing the "Fiddle diddle dee" part accurately, and then just kind of muddle around and end on the appropriate note. I wanted so badly to be able to sing that run as perfectly as Mom did.
From my earliest recollection, I was always dying to sing. As a child, I often felt envious of both Mom and Erin because they had opportunities to sing that I didn't have. I would sit, entranced, in the musty velvet seats of the Cambridge Performing Arts Center, watching Mom sing solos for musicals like South Pacific, The Mikado, and H.M.S. Pinafore. Erin sang solos for P.T.O. programs, and she performed with the Muskingum College Children's Choir, a group that went defunct just as I finally got old enough to join it. For me, there were no opportunities for singing...except at home.
Erin would bring her choir music home with her and teach me the second lines. Then we would sing duets for Mom and Dad. They were our first audience. I can remember Mom applauding, glowing with pride, as we finished a song. Then she would critique us, in the sweetest, most loving way. She taught me things like good breathing and posture. She taught me how to pronounce my words clearly so they could be understood when I sang. She taught me stage presence, and how to make my face light up. Never did it occur to her how much all that meant to me, or how important it would be for me later. I also doubt she ever knew that I continued to desperately try to sing that run at the end of "Be My Echo." As of fourth grade, I still could not sing it the way Mom could.
When I got to fourth grade, my teachers got ambitious and put together a huge P.T.O. program, all about the history of New Concord. They parodied dozens of songs, wrote pages of speeches, and created over a hundred costumes. I was supposed to sing the song "In the Jungle," with the words changed to be about the Wilds, the new wildlife reserve which had opened that year, south of New Concord. The audience for that P.T.O. program was packed. And Mom was there, ready to watch her second daughter sing her first public solo. Later, Mom said that she cried when I sang my part. "I didn't know you could sing like that," she told me. "I never knew until that day."
That compliment carried me through every audition, every concert, every musical, every solo that I ever sang afterward. I had a lot of great teachers, yes, but Mom's opinion as a musician mattered the most to me. Mom's voice was beautiful. She had a sweet, mellow quality to her singing: it reminded me of a gentler version of Shirley Jones. Her pitch was always perfect. I cannot recall a single time she ever sang out of key. Her support was wonderful, her breathing incredible. And she always sang like she had been mute for years, and then healed: it was an expression of pure joy. She knew how to inject just the right amount of feeling into a piece, and nothing ever felt forced. Her love of music poured out of her when she sang. Whether it was dramatic, like her rendition of "Some Enchanted Evening" in South Pacific, or joyful, like "The Hallelujah Chorus," or mischievous, like that dratted run in "Be My Echo," you never failed to see the emotion.
My solos increased as I got older. I sang choral and solo music at church. I auditioned for, and was awarded, solos for my school choirs. I had a secondary role in one musical and a starring role in another, when I was in high school. And for every single performance, Mom sat out there in the audience, applauding me when most of the credit should have gone to her.
Mom was a beautiful singer. Mom was an incredible actress. But Mom was also an absolutely brilliant teacher. Everything she knew about performance, from the makeup to the monologues to the music, she passed on to her daughters. If I know anything at all about music, it's because Mom taught me about it when I was small. She used to tell me, laughingly but with a bit of envy, that I was getting all the solos she'd dreamed of getting. I told her many times that I never would have gotten them without her, and she could sing them equally well. Being the self-deprecating person she is, she would laugh and shrug this off as nonsense. But it was true.
Fast forward to student-teaching, fall of 2006. I was discussing music for the fourth grade with my supervising teacher, Maizee Craft, and somehow, the "Be My Echo" song came up. I told her about how much I'd loved singing it with my mom. "Well, why not teach it to the fourth grade?" Maizee suggested. So that afternoon, on the way home from school, I sang the song to my dashboard. I came up to the "Fiddle diddle dee," and sang it. And then...I sang the run. Perfectly. Effortlessly. Finally, all my hard work had paid off. I did a little dance in the car and laughed.
I taught my fourth graders that song the following day, and I looked forward to that run the way a kid looks forward to seeing someone sit on the whoopee cushion he set up. I told the kids to echo me and then began to sing the song. They got along pretty well for most of it, only crashing occasionally. Then came that run, and with a mischievous grin on my face, I sang, "Fiddle diddle dee," and then took off into the fantastic run of triplets, trills and high notes. Then I looked at the kids, and saw my totally stumped, five-year-old face mirrored in theirs. It was a joyous moment. The Echo song had come full-circle. On my way home that day, I said a quiet thank you to God for my mom.
Now, four and a half years later, I sit here in my house, knowing I only have my mom for a few days more. I feel so privileged to have been there for her final solo. At the time, I didn't know that it was her last. But I knew it could be. It was for Christmas Eve service at our church. We had just found out the previous afternoon that there were no more treatment options for her, and that at best, she had six months left. She, Dad and I were the only ones who knew about it. I wasn't even supposed to know, but I caught Mom crying and forced it out of her. She told me not to tell anyone because she "Didn't want to spoil Christmas for everyone." So, yielding to her wishes, I kept it to myself...the hardest night I've ever spent...and went into the Christmas Eve service tired and sad.
Mom had wanted for years to sing Natalie Cole's version of "The Holly and the Ivy." It's really beautiful, but it was far too low for Mom's soprano. This year, we got Tim Thomas to create a track, and he transposed it up for her so she could sing it. "I know I'm going to cry," she complained to me. "I always cry when I sing solos." It is true that Mom often cried during her church solos. Her faith made her emotional. She once informed all of us daughters that we should not expect her to sing at any of our weddings, because she didn't want to ruin the moment with her blubbing. But I managed to convince her to sing this piece.
By Christmas Eve, she couldn't sing standing up anymore. She couldn't wear a dress because her stomach was too bloated from the tumors. So she sat there, on a stool, in a red sweater and khaki pants, and sang that beautiful carol.
The holly and the ivy
When they are both full grown
Of all the trees
That are in the wood,
The holly wears the crown
O the rising of the sun
The running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing in the choir
The holly bears a blossom
As white as lily flower
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
To be our sweet Saviour
O the rising of the sun
The running of the deer
The playing of the merry organ
Sweet singing in the choir
By the end of it, I was crying. Again, it had come full-circle. Sixteen years previously, at the 1994 P.T.O. program, Mom had cried when I sang my first solo. And now, Christmas of 2010, I was crying because I was hearing Mom sing her last.
What do you do when your inspiration for your music is gone? Your one loyal audience member, your one unbiased critic? How do you heal from that? I can't answer that question. But I do know one thing: everything I sing is for God first, and for Mom second. She's going to be singing in heaven soon, where no one sings flat, where everyone pronounces their consonants crisply, where everyone cuts off their notes at the exact same time so there's no "mess of S's." She'll be immersed in the music of her Creator, and she'll get to sing her first heavenly solo with no pain, no struggle. She will be on her feet, clothed in her perfect heavenly body, singing with all the joy she has in her being.
I wish so desperately that I could be there to hear that solo. But at least one day, I'll be in heaven with her, and we'll sing our first duet to our Savior, mother and daughter, sisters in Christ.
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