My dear sweet Charlie baby, you musical little boy.
I’m sorry I didn’t sing to you more. I sang more to you through tears and a cracked voice while you were in the hospital and now while you are in Heaven than I did the whole time you were alive and that upsets me. I used to walk around the house belting out songs at the top of my lungs. I sang “Let it Go” at full strength to Riley before she was even born.
When COVID pushed us all into lockdowns and work/school from home situations I stopped belting songs because it was disrupting. I was sick while pregnant with you and busy and tired. When you arrived a lot happened. There was a lot going on for me mentally and emotionally and our family and I was tired. My vocal range was slipping and I just wasn’t feeling any songs that hit my heart in a way I needed to belt it out.
Lullaby’s also didn’t soothe you like they did Riley. You were a fussy baby (which apparently is typical with Leigh’s so now we know why). So eventually it just felt pointless. But I also missed the point. I only sang to you to try to soothe you and I assumed you didn’t like it. I hardly ever sang when you were happy and a lot of times as much as I tried with things like “head, shoulders, knees and toes” you seemed bored and moved on to other things. I never really tried just walking around and singing as I normally would while I did things. Like regular on the radio songs (maybe some Twenty One Pilots here and there). Not until you were older and more out of desperation for new ways for you to learn to talk. Never just for enjoyment.
But you made noise/music all the time for enjoyment. That’s what you wanted it for. That’s what I missed and I’m sorry.
The only one I sang that we for sure knew you liked was “A bushel and a peck” G.G. sang that to all of us growing up and I sang it to Riley too. But for some reason I sang it more to you. I wanted my kids to grow up singing Bushel and a Peck like their great grandma does and to be able to sing it and remember her singing it with us. I never thought for a second I would be singing it standing next to your casket with G.G. and Great Papa and Great Nana and the family in the room.
When you were in the hospital I sang it a lot. Hoping you’d hear my voice and remember I love you and that it would somehow be a magical song that would bring you back to me. When the Our Lady Peace song “thief” found its way back into my brain I sang it to you. Promising you I would be with you. Hoping my voice would give you something to hang on to to bring you home. Why would it though? You never got to hear me truly sing. Truly sing like I meant it until then.
Now I sing a lot. I sing with all my heart. The songs that express my pain but it’s broken. It’s full of cracks, sharps and flats where they shouldn’t be as I try to say the words out loud that are all too real. I once could sing with great volume and now it fades falls to whispers when my heart can’t take it anymore. So you still don’t know what it truly sounds like. I have a playlist of songs I try to play and sing along to in the car but when I actually sing them it hurts too much.
One I never sang to you but do now. Surprisingly a lot of people don’t know the second verse too. I will never sing it without the second verse although the first verse is sad too.
You are my sunshine
My only sunshine
You make me Happy
When skies are grey
You’ll never know dear, how much I love you
So please don’t take, my sunshine away
The other day dear,
As I lay sleeping
I dreamed I held you in my arms.
When I awoke dear,
I was mistaken
and so I hung my head and I cried.
Also I like this version of You are My Sunshine https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=l6gQtoJoKbI
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