Because everyone needs a Lullaby....

This story was inspired by Adele Enerson the writer of Mila's Daydreams. She wrote and sang a song just for Mila her daughter and I loved and still Love it, in the wake of a negative pregnancy test and the hope I still have to conceive I am going to re-post this here for all the children who are loved and bring Magic to the lives of their parents.

The Lullaby

The child was magic. Everywhere she went flowers bloomed, dreams became reality, and when she sang creatures danced. You wouldn’t know it by looking at her as she looked to be the ordinary child, red of hair, fair of face, delightful, but contrary disposition, a child not rare in the world but utterly magical.

Alim was her name she was bright, strong, loving and old of soul. She loved to sing, but in her singing was when her magic gained flight.

One day while Alim was playing in the forest, out of sight of her house, she started to sing a lullaby that had no words. As she sang she started to twirl and all around Alim the woods came to life. The sun was high in the sky giving the woods a golden glow and a mist started to form at the base of the trees gilded with the sunlight and alive with the purple aura of magic. Alim was unawares of the happenings around her for she had closed her eyes to the song and sang from her heart.

In the clearing of the woods where Alim had wondered the sun framed her burnished curls as she twirled in her white dress around and around eyes closed, hands spread all the while humming her lullaby. What a delight she was to behold.

Alim’s mother noticing that she was out of sight of the house went in search of Alim and while walking through the wood found that all was silent but for a gentle dreamy hum of a lullaby. “Alim?” she said softly and followed the sound.

As she walked she also noticed that the creatures of the wood were no where to be seen. There wasn’t a squirrel in the trees or a rabbit underfoot. Not even a bird singing loftily above her head. She stopped and looked around, curious, dumfounded, and still hearing the strange lullaby hummed softly by her child.

She continued to walk; this mother of magic, when she came upon Alim in the clearing and her haunting lullaby, what she saw made her catch her breath soundlessly in wonder.

Alim was twirling and humming a song that flowed from her heart and out of her throat. It had no words that she knew of just sound and feeling. She didn’t know when it would end, or if it would never stop. She hummed and then she opened her mouth and she sang and it was beautiful.

Alim never opened her eyes as she sang and twirled but all around her the animals of the wood were dancing in the mist. The purple gilt of the mist had given the creatures and Alim a wondrous sense of mystery and fantasy. It was a child’s dream come to life. Bears in tiara are waltzing with rabbits in tailcoats, fawns in gowns gliding around the clearing like ballerinas, and squirrels in top hats providing musical accompaniment to Alim’s song.

Alim’s mother was in awe of what she saw in the clearing with Alim at its center. It was as if someone dreamed.

Alas as all dreams do, though, it came to an end, and as the last cords of Alim’s song came to a close she twirled one last time and sang softly as she opened her eyes to behold her living daydream of an Animal Ball.

Thinking About What You Say (Or Write) By Melissa

I am going to tell a story, it doesn't matter if it is fact or fiction. What matters is the story it tells. I hope people listen and think. Think about what you say, and what you write before you say it to children.

Shannon was nine when her step father went into AA. Or was it NA? She wasn't really sure. She knew it was supposed to help him get better and it didn't really work. He was still angry. Her world was still torn apart. The home still felt ugly.

Part of AA (we will go with AA since we don't know which it was, but we do know he was addicted to both drugs and alcohol as evidenced by the track marks on his arms, and elsewhere) was he had to keep a notebook. Children are curious, and too stupid to know that sometimes what is inside of notebooks, even carefully hidden ones, can destroy their emotions. That is what happened to Shannon when she read her step fathers notebook.

Even though her father was not exactly kind to her most of the time, she clung to the times when he was. Children are awfully forgiving creatures. They have to be in order to survive the land of playground politics. In Shannon's mind her step father was just angry sometimes, like Robert at school who sometimes pulled her hair or called her stupid. And... maybe she just was stupid. She just made herself not feel it when they said those things. She only let herself believe the hugs, and when he said "I love you."

But she found his notebook and read, being the curious child that she was. She knew she shouldn't. She knew he would be angry. She knew he would probably spank her, or worse call her awful things. He'd once taken books from her because he didn't want her to get ideas from the content in them, saying they were too "adult" in content. Reflecting as an adult, it's interesting to her that the book was Mommy Dearest.

There were things about God, and forgiveness. Asking for it, so on and so forth. Lots of things that a young girl didn't really understand, but there was one page that will be forever burned in her memory. It was the day she read in his notebook that her step father hated her. It was on a page of things he wanted to "confess". Not that he had done awful things to her, or her mother or to countless other people. It was that he hated HER, that he wished SHE wasn't alive. That he wished there was only one child in the household. That he couldn't stand to look at her. And on and on, in a paragraph forever etched in her brain.

Forever etched in her brain.

Today I ask you to think about all of the Shannon's in the world.  There are thousands of them being told by the people they love that they wish they had never been born. They are being made to feel like they aren't worthy. They don't feel they should be alive. They feel like mistakes, unloved and unwanted.

Hug your children. Please tell them that they are awesome. Tell them that you are glad they are alive.

THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU SAY AND WRITE.