One thing I wont 'clean' my room of
so. I was cleaning my room to make space for the upcoming arrangement in it.
I found this music "box". still plays in the similar fashion but is not, however, shaped like a box.
it's circular, with red felt cropping the shape of two bracketed 8th notes, and has a swivel hook at the bottom.
When wound, the hook slow turns and and chimes 'fly me to the moon' ..the perfect tune to lull a baby to sleep.
I brought it into the living room where my parents were watching a movie. I set it on the coffee table and I asked where they wanted it. My dad told me the story of where it came from and of the little plushy bird that once hung from the hook.
I couldn't help but notice the same tone in his voice in telling me that story from the time he stood in my doorway with tears in his eyes as he watched with me old home movies that were recorded with immense emotion and memorial preservation to account for the lacking quality of recording. The sound of his young voice echoing from the speakers of my TV and the matured voice coming from behind to me. But he never took his eyes off the screen. He was smiling as he wiped away the tears he didn't want me to see. The tears that fell for Sonnie.
His tears that fell from his damaged heart, reflecting his thoughts as if to say "When I join you..I will still fly you to the moon, someday." --
Sonnie Was Born Mildly Retarded. A victim of Trisome 18. Fresh into their marriage. The financial decline that the young couple had to face taking care of medical treatments, emergency runs, hospital bills, gas money, sacrificing sleep running to her every cry not knowing the seriousness of the alarm, finding new jobs -multiple jobs- just to support the family.
How often is it that a young couple is prepared for this situation so young in their relationship? No one should have to deal with the hardships they put up with, from beginning to end. for 15 years they dealt with it. They never gave up, disregarding the hospital having no doubt that she shouldn't have lived past a year or two without a miracle.
--but the smile on his face as he watched her in those home movies proved that none of that time was wasted. I could tell my dad loved her very much.
It was only around the year I was born that my sister died.
As the song that she fell asleep to every night, his heart forever sings "Fly Me To the Moon"