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...

Consider this... 1959

In 1959, the world was a different place.

There was no Google yet. Or Yahoo. Or Gauchodeinteligenciaartificial.blogspot, for that matter.

In 1959, the year of your birth, the top selling movie was Ben-Hur. People buying the popcorn in the cinema lobby had glazing eyes when looking at the poster.

Remember, that was before there were DVDs. Heck, even before there was VHS. People were indeed watching movies in the cinema, and not downloading them online. Imagine the packed seats, the laughter, the excitement, the novelty. And mostly all of that without 3D computer effects.

Do you know who won the Oscars that year? The academy award for the best movie went to Ben-Hur. The Oscar for best foreign movie that year went to Black Orpheus. The top actor was Charlton Heston for his role as Judah Ben-Hur in Ben-Hur. The top actress was Simone Signoret for her role as Alice Aisgill in Room at the Top. The best director? William Wyler for Ben-Hur.

In the year 1959, the time when you arrived on this planet, books were still popularly read on paper, not on digital devices. Trees were felled to get the word out. The number one US bestseller of the time was Exodus by Leon Uris. Oh, that's many years ago. Have you read that book? Have you heard of it?

In 1959... Cultivars of plants named after this date must be named in a modern language, not in Latin. Castro's troops approach Havana. The island of Addu in the Maldives declares independence. Alaska is admitted as the 49th U.S. state. Women in Nepal vote for the first time. The Marx Brothers make their last TV appearance, in The Incredible Jewel Robbery. Import tariffs are lifted in the United Kingdom. Two monkeys, Able and Miss Baker are the first living beings to successfully return to Earth from space aboard the flight Jupiter AM-18. Singapore becomes a self-governing crown colony of Britain with Lee Kuan Yew as Prime Minister. The Central Treaty Organization CENTO is established. The original Mini designed by Sir Alec Issigonis is launched. The first section of England's M1 motorway opens between the present junctions 5 and 18. Three years after its first telecast, MGM's The Wizard of Oz is shown on television for only the second time, but it gains an even larger viewing audience than its first television outing, spurring CBS to make it an annual tradition.

That was the world you were born into. Since then, you and others have changed it.

The Nobel prize for Literature that year went to Salvatore Quasimodo. The Nobel Peace prize went to Philip J. Noel-Baker. The Nobel prize for physics went to Owen Chamberlain and Emilio Gino Segrè from the United States for their discovery of the antiproton. The sensation this created was big. But it didn't stop the planets from spinning, on and on, year by year. Years in which you would grow bigger, older, smarter, and, if you were lucky, sometimes wiser. Years in which you also lost some things. Possessions got misplaced. Memories faded. Friends parted ways. The best friends, you tried to hold on. This is what counts in life, isn't it?

The 1950s were indeed a special decade. The American economy is on the upswing. The cold war betwen the US and the Soviet Union is playing out throughout the whole decade. Anti-communism prevails in the United States and leads to the Red Scare and accompanying Congressional hearings. Africa begins to become decolonized. The Korean war takes place. The Vietnam War starts. The Suez Crisis war is fought on Egyptian territory. Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and others overthrow authorities to create a communist government on Cuba. Funded by the US, reconstructions in Japan continue.

In Japan, film maker Akira Kurosawa creates the movies Rashomon and Seven Samurai. The FIFA World Cups are won by Uruguay, then West Germany, then Brazil.

Do you remember the movie that was all the rage when you were 15? Murder on the Orient Express. Do you still remember the songs playing on the radio when you were 15? Maybe it was Rock Me Gently by Andy Kim. Were you in love? Who were you in love with, do you remember?

In 1959, 15 years earlier, a long time ago, the year when you were born, the song Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by The Platters topped the US charts. Do you know the lyrics? Do you know the tune? Sing along.

They asked me how I knew

My true love was true

Oh, I of course replied

Something here inside cannot be denied

...

There's a kid outside, shouting, playing. It doesn't care about time. It doesn't know about time. It shouts and it plays and thinks time is forever. You were once that kid.

When you were 9, the movie Blackbeard's Ghost was playing. When you were 8, there was Doctor Dolittle.

6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... it's 1959. There's TV noise coming from the second floor. Someone turned up the volume way too high. The sun is burning from above. These were different times. The show playing on TV is Bonanza . The sun goes down. Someone switches channels. There's The Bell Telephone Hour on now. That's the world you were born in.

Progress, year after year. Do you wonder where the world is heading towards? The technology available today would have blown your mind in 1959. Do you know what was invented in the year you were born? The Bullet Train.

1959 was a very strange time

A bad year for labor and a good year for wine

Uncle Ike was our American Pal

And nobody talked about the Suez Canal

...

That's from the song Post World War Two Blues by Al Stewart.

In 1959, a new character entered the world of comic books: Fritz the Cat. Bang! Boom! But that's just fiction, right? In the real world, in 1959, Bryan Adams was born. And Rosanna Arquette. Nastassja Kinski, too. And you, of course. Everyone an individual. Everyone special. Everyone taking a different path through life.

It's 2010.

The world is a different place.

What path have you taken?

What happened in my birth year?