The Pear Tree

One of my fondest memories from childhood is being sung to sleep at night. The two voices I most clearly recall leading out in this ritual are those of my mum, and my grandmother when she babysat or I stayed over night at her house.

My mum’s repertoire included “Puff the Magic Dragon,” “You Are My Sunshine” and “Scarlet Ribbons.”

My grandma favoured “O Danny Boy,” “Tura Lura Lura” and “Baby Bunting.”

While they weren’t, of course, the only songs they sang, they were the standards. The ones they always came back to, and the ones that bring the singer to mind even today, the rare time I hear them.

I wasn’t an easy child to put to bed. When my mum would stroke my hair in an effort to get me to relax and, ultimately, fall asleep, it would make me irate (she likes to remind me). It was like I knew what she was up to, she says, and would tolerate none of it. But the singing helped me let my guard down.

I’d warble along, at first, sometimes in an entirely different key. Before long I’d just be quiet and listen. I still don’t know exactly how Scarlet Ribbons ends. I don’t think I ever made it to the end awake.

I remember, once, telling my mum what a beautiful voice she had, and her laughing and telling me she had a terrible voice. I don’t often hear her singing by herself, so I can’t confirm or deny that, but I do recall a voice that was sweet and light and gentle and full of love.

My grandma’s voice was a little bit more showy. She did vibrato and a little more drama when she sang – although she always claimed she was too old to have a good voice anymore.

To me, though, they were two of the most beautiful sounds on earth.

If I close my eyes and think really hard, I can still hear their voices, in my head, digitalized or recorded or however the brain captures such things and keeps them. But some days, like today, I get a sentimental hankering to hear them outside of my head. If not in person, then in some way recorded and played back, out loud and for real.

Can a sound be tangible? Perhaps not, but it can be real.

The other day my son, Oliver, was listening to the soundtrack from The Sound of Music, and asked me to sing along. Not really in a sing-songy sort of mood, I declined by saying, “but she has a much nicer voice than me. Let’s just listen to Maria.”

“Oh, no,” he said. “You have a much nicer voice than her!”

Than Julie Andrews? Thank you, but let’s be serious.

I laughed, at first, but then I remembered my own experience as a child and realized that he was right. Not because I actually, in the real world, come anywhere close to the talent of a musical superstar like Julie Andrews, but because I am The Mum. And what my kids hear when I sing them to sleep, or hum to myself while I do the dishes, is not just my voice but something of me, their mother.

They hear hugs and kisses and reprimands and life lessons, play times and home cooked meals and adventures and tickle sessions.

Our own repertoire includes (but is not limited to) “Morningtown Ride” (AKA “Train Whistle Blowing”), and “Moon River,” and a song they learned in church called “God is Watching Over Me.” Sometimes I’ll sneak one of my mum’s or my grandma’s songs in, to mix it up a bit.

I hope the effect will be the same – that someday, years and years from now when they’ve grown past the point of me singing them to sleep, they’ll hear those songs and remember those intimate times.

And a mother who loved them with a song.

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The Mother Load is a mommy column by Pear Tree editor Lori-Anne Poirier that runs weekly in The Penticton Herald’s Southern Exposure.

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- Words by Lori-Anne Poirier

- Photo by Jessica Todd Harper via Pinterest

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