No discord

We didn't know where the notes would lead. Sometimes they even left the page. Still we followed. We followed and knew exactly what would happen next. Not a day passed when either Mom or Dad didn't break into song. More times than not, it ended in a duet. Mom and Dad's marriage was a duet. They knew the music and passed through each day singing it together. We learned life by the sound of invisible notes.

I do not know how to explain this thing called music. I do not know why when we dance, we seem to know which way to go to follow our partner's steps. I do not know how we find the notes to harmonize or the way we improvise. If you did not grow up back the lane on Neff Road, this might all sound strange to you, but to the Loxley girls, this was our growing up. This was our way of life.

Working on a farm takes more than dirt beneath the nails and sweat on the brow. Farming has a rhythm. It sings in nature and in the love that tends the earth. The hum of the tractor, the rhythm of the planter, the birds that sing, and the crunch of gravel beneath your feet. Sounds we know from birth. Sounds that carry forward in all we do.

When I was a small girl, I learned to harmonize when my family sang. No one taught the high notes to me or the way they wrapped around the notes the rest of my family sang. No one taught me to find the patterns of notes as they climbed and fell. There was no map that lead me to the notes I should sing. The rhythms and the sounds just were. Had I been raised in a different household, I might not have had the time to listen. If I did not have parents who only knew the music that captured them in everything they did, I might not hear the song that runs through all mankind.

discord  [n. dis-kawrd; v. dis-kawrd] noun
1. lack of concord or harmony between persons or things 
 
Not a new word. One that covers the pages of newspapers, invades homes and threatens the very core of society. Discord. There is a meshing that needs to happen in order for people to live and work together. A rhythm. A need for everyone to try to blend in harmony. That way of knowing how to enhance one another, encouraging, working to live peacefully. It is in us all. I know it is. If we try hard enough, we can find that thread that ties us together. I see it every day. Someone comes into the store sad or even angry. Find the right notes and doors open. A connection is made. And....just maybe...a heart is warmed. Harmony.

As children we never had a singing lesson. We did not need someone to show us how to do it. Harmony was the heart of our lives on Neff Road. We grew from it. It embraced us. Sometimes the notes even left the page.

Remember

Dear Grandchildren,

You will read about it in your history books. You will see video and perhaps visit the site yourselves, but you will not know the terror that ripped through us that morning of 9/11. Your uncle/daddy and I watched, tears streaming down our faces, anger and sadness tearing our through our hearts. We cannot forget. I ask you not to forget. Life is precious as precious as is our freedom. Hate is the enemy. Even in the smallest form. I ask that you remember and be a light in this world that has known such terrible loss and pain. I ask that you be bearers of peace. I embrace you today and remember. 

Love, Grammy