Consider this... "Hallelujah!"

I was surfing YouTube and came across this. I had no idea the impact it would have on me. I've just re-watched it again and as before, I'm sitting here with tears streaming down my face.

I don't know if you know this about me, but I sing. I sing well enough at least. I know all of Handel's Messiah in 3 of the parts. I can't manage to sing bass in the proper range but that's all to the good *smiles*. My mom used to play the whole of The Messiah on either piano or organ. That organ you see about 12 seconds into the above video wouldn't have been above my mom's ability when she was in her prime. She played a similar one at Notre Dame for one of my cousin's wedding. She played it beautifully too. She adapted the wedding processional from The Sound of Music working into the traditional "Here Comes The Bride". It was absolutely grand!

Note from the "Hallelujah" vid at the beginning, something I hadn't noticed until this last. The Christmas tree in the store is exactly the Christmas tree my mom always strove for. She went mostly with blue lights, but that's the effect she wanted. But I digress...

The reason I'm sharing all of this is to tell you how wonderful my mom is, what a gifted musician she is/was, and how much I miss that. We were able to get her piano down to my sister's house where mom and dad are staying now. She has that again at least. She gets so upset that she's no longer able to play as well as she once used to. The stroke she had several years back robbed her of some of the coordination it takes. But she still plays well.

She wasn't able to teach me how to play piano. My communication style left her very frustrated with me... well, it did/does with most people. I know the reason why for that now. But, mom tried her best to help me as I diligently taught myself. If I hit the wrong key, she'd call out from wherever she was in the house (usually the kitchen) with the correct one I should be playing. I'd find it and try again. If I still had difficulty, she'd come over and show me by example reaching over my shoulder.

She's the first person to ever "get" me. I know I drove my family nuts because of the problems I had/still have. I saw/still see things at a different angle from the masses. Always have and probably always will. And try as I might, at that age, I couldn't see things from the angle that everyone else were seemingly able to.

Once, when my mom was directing the church choir, she'd asked me to help her with the syncopation of a new song she was teaching the them. I took her at her word and when she wasn't getting it quite right, I tried to teach her like she taught me the piano. I didn't realize that it would embarrass her in front of the choir. I just knew she wanted me to help and I was trying my best.

She yelled at me in front of them. Yelled. Mom didn't yell often and I simply got up and walked out of the sanctuary. I sat on the hallway floor across from the pastor's study and waited for choir to be done. After she'd gotten everything put away, she came out and stood over me. We started to argue and then I said those words that most teens say at one time or other, "You just don't understand me," and I started to cry. That heart-wrenching, tears pouring, cry from your soul type of cry.

Something about that struck a chord with her. She told me to come with her to the car and she started driving out of the parking lot... a straight across the street to the parsonage. She met the pastor at the door, talked for a bit with him, then signaled for me to come inside with her. Pastor listened to both of us. Then he did something that entirely shocked me.

He told my mom that she was wrong, that he'd seen how our family interacts and knew that no one took the time to really "hear" me. She started crying, I started crying, we started crying in each other's arms. That's the night mom learned to understand... when she really started listening... and I found a voice. And... we started becoming friends. She became more than mom, she became "K-wohl" (that's "Carol" with your tongue between your lower lip and lower teeth).

Now that mom and dad aren't here in my home any longer, it's really struck me how much things have changed. While they were here I was so busy learning a new job, keeping the kids as quiet as possible, trying to see to my parent's needs, trying to make things pleasant for them, and just too busy. I'm still too busy, but this week has been a week of reminiscing.

Never again are we all going to sing together as a family around my mom playing the piano. Never again will I have the opportunity to hear her play her rendition of "Shower's of Blessing" or her arrangement of "Every Moment of Every Day" with the "Theme from The Pink Panther" as the intro (boy, did she get looks from the congregation the morning she debuted that *LOL*) or hear her yell to me from the kitchen the correct key from the one I struck in error

I miss my momma... I'm 51 years old, and I miss my K-Wohl...