When other people sing about their babies growing up

The first part of my blog name, gluten free, is my dietary lifestyle. Another HUGE part of my life is the songbird part of my name. :) I started singing at the age of five when my father hoisted me up on a stool and played guitar while I sang God Gives Us Mothers one mother's day in the chapel on the base in Bagotville PQ where we were stationed. Thus began a life-long love of music and singing and something very special which I shared with my father for the rest of his life, but that's another blog post for another time.

By the time I was twelve, I had my first voice teacher and I studied singing privately until I was eighteen. In recent years, I have found a wonderful teacher and rediscovered my old love of singing. At a recent masterclass, one of her other students sang the Abba song; Slipping Through My Fingers. I nearly lost it. In fact, I made it quite clear that I could not be the next in line to sing as I needed a few moments to get myself back together. I have been an Abba fan since high school when my friend discovered her parents' LP and a group of us fell in love with the band as though they were new. I have memories of them being on tv in my childhood, but can't say I was ever a fan before this time. Still, I had not heard this song ever until I heard it in my friend's car while we were driving along a New England highway on the way to meet up with some other friends. It was oh so poignant at that time and even more so with my first born getting set to graduate this June.

Schoolbag in hand, she leaves home in the early morning
Waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile
I watch her go with a surge of that well-known sadness
And I have to sit down for a while
The feeling that I'm losing her forever
And without really entering her world
I'm glad whenever I can share her laughter
That funny little girl

Slipping through my fingers all the time
I try to capture every minute
The feeling in it
Slipping through my fingers all the time
Do I really see whats in her mind
Each time I think Im close to knowing
She keeps on growing
Slipping through my fingers all the time

Sleep in our eyes, her and me at the breakfast table
Barely awake, I let precious time go by
Then when shes gone there's that odd melancholy feeling
And a sense of guilt I cant deny

What happened to the wonderful adventures
The places I had planned for us to go
(slipping through my fingers all the time)
Well, some of that we did but most we didn't
And why I just don't know

Slipping through my fingers all the time
I try to capture every minute
The feeling in it
Slipping through my fingers all the time
Do I really see whats in her mind
Each time I think I'm close to knowing
She keeps on growing
Slipping through my fingers all the time

Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture
And save it from the funny tricks of time
Slipping through my fingers...

Slipping through my fingers all the time

Schoolbag in hand she leaves home in the early morning
Waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile...

The first line about her going off to school with bag in hand reminded me of a sleepy eyed Melissa who had taken to sneaking in to sleep at the foot of our bed and her comments to me when I was concerned about her getting on a bus to go to the private school where we were sending her for Kindergarten. This bleary eyed little girl told me not to worry. A few days later, she got on that bus and never looked back. Of course, there were the times she fell asleep on the way home from a full day of school and had to be awakened by the bus driver. I look at the photos we have of our girls and I look at them now and it seems like another lifetime. I remember them, but it somehow doesn't seem real. Before long, this sweet girl who is growing to be more her own person every day will leave us. I've always believed that my job is to raise my girls to be independent, but when I think about it just like the song says, I have to sit down for a while.