One of the hardest things as a parent is taking a back seat and letting your child take over and drive their lives. Really they have been doing it all their lives but they have let you believe that you had some control over their lives. This is just when you realize that they really are in charge of their life.
Ever since R found her voice as a baby she has sung songs of her own tune and lyrics. She would be up until midnight singing her heart out in her bed every night as a toddler and preschooler. I don’t know that she will ever be the next big thing in music, but this child has always had music in her soul.
When she was 5, I enrolled her in a Children’s Choir with a phenomenal director. She sang with them for two years and at the end of the second year, her Director died suddenly due to returning cancer. This was the first time my little girl had ever dealt with the death of someone close to her. It was a hard lesson and we took a bit of a break from Choir afterward.
We ended up moving and I thought a fresh start with choir would be good. She joined the school choir as she was now old enough.
I then enrolled her in a new Children’s Choir. The Director was less than impressive and although she enjoyed the choir I didn’t want to pay for something when I felt like she wasn’t learning. Since we now live in a big metropolitan area, I found a different choir for her that I felt would teach her the things she needed musically. However, last year at Christmas time the pianist of that choir also succumbed to cancer suddenly. Adding insult to injury in their last concert of the year they were going to be singing a song that her first choir had sung at her Director’s funeral. This was more than she could handle and we limped (she very unwillingly) to the end of the season. She was determined she would never sing in a choir again.
She would frequently say she hated singing. She stopped singing at home and at church. My heart ached to hear her sing again but I realized she needed to not be involved in choir for a while and despite a very strong desire on my part to make her continue with it because it is innately who she is, I backed off. I tried to give her space and help her find other ways of enjoying music.
After the summer passed and school started again, unbeknownst to me she joined the school choir again. Then recently she was asked to sing in a children’s choir at church and sing a duet. She was SO excited.
She still resists my attempts to pull her back in, and I still miss hearing her voice around the house, but she is finding her way back. And that makes me happy and more able to trust her to figure out and tell me what she needs, and a little less anxious about her taking control of the wheel.
