COMMUNICATION

COMMUNICATION
RHAPSODY IN RICHMOND
I would like to take you back in time a few decades and tell you a story that I know well, because I am the principal character in this story. I was just about two years of age, when my parents allowed me to stay over night for the first time at my grandmother’s home in a little town in Northern Utah called Richmond, a town not more than a few hundred people, but a very remarkable place because my grandmother lived there, and she was an extraordinary woman. She was magic. In particular, she had magic fingers. Through her fingers magical things could happen. She could take old pieces of rags my grandfather would bring home and turn them into beautiful pieces of rugs and tapestries. She could take yarn and turn it into beautiful afghans and quilts. She could take powdered sugar and water and turn it into little kittens, angels, clowns, beautiful flowers...anything to make a cake that would delight a child on his birthday. She had magical hands, and in this house she had a magical couch that, by the movement of certain levers, would transform itself into a bed. Being a two-year old, when it came time for bed I was not interested in sleeping in a traditional kind of bed. I wanted to sleep on the magic couch with my grandmother (wouldn’t you?) She was very tired, and soon I could tell from the rhythm of her breathing that she was falling asleep. As we were lying there in her living room in Richmond, Utah, many decades ago, with cars running along the Highway 89-91 with their headlights coming through the curtains on the front of her house, a new experience began for me. I could see eery patterns on the wall, things that go “bump in the night.” instantly becoming dragons, monsters, and devouring creatures that would eat me up! I remember lying there, becoming increasingly more concerned, stressful, and frightened, and feeling my grandmother becoming increasingly more asleep; I had three words I wanted to say...three words that were difficult for a two-year old to say — three words that are difficult for a grown-up to say. Those three words were, “Grandma, I’m scared.” When I uttered those three words, my grandmother had a multitude of responses she could have drawn upon to take away my fears. She could have told me about the safety of their home or explained the principle of light refraction through curtains upon the walls, but she didn’t use any words to calm my troubled heart. She used magic. She slid over a little closer to me and put her arm around me (the first form of magic) and began to sing the following song. It would be the first song I remember hearing, the first song I ever learned and performed, and I am about to inflict it upon you: Oh, do you remember a long time ago, There were two little babes, their names I don’t know They strayed far away on a bright summer’s day And were lost in the woods, I heard people say. Within that period of time, what we refer to in musical terms as the first complete statement, a miracle had occurred. My fear was gone, and in its place was security, calm, but more important than that, was the knowledge that I was loved by my grandmother. The song continues: And when it was night, how great was their fright The bright sun went down and the moon gave no light They sighed and they sighed and they bitterly cried, And the poor little babes, they laid down and died And when they were dead, the robins so red, Brought strawberry leaves and over them spread. And all the night long they sang their sweet song, Poor babes in the woods, poor babes in the woods.” My grandmother was a remarkable lady, and the music that she taught me had great power in it, and it still has the power to bring the memories of her back to me. When I have told some of my friends about this experience, some have said; “Your grandma was kind of strange wasn’t she?” They don’t understand that my grandmother was not only teaching me that love conquers fear, but also that death is part of life. It may be because she had brushed with death many times in her life, that she had such deep understanding, but whatever the reason, she was telling me that it was okay. I have leaned on her understanding of death throughout my life, and now that she is gone I still hearken to that moment of learning. She is alive for me in that song.