Once upon a time when I was young my grandpa had to have open heart surgery. My mom was traveling to Salt Lake to be with him at the hospital and leaving my sister and I at home with my dad for a few days until she got back. There was a blizzard and I remember being so worried about her traveling safely. I knew she needed to go, but I didn't want her to. I remember vividly that she drove us out to the bus stop the morning she was leaving. The sun hadn't come up yet, and the snow flakes flurried around in the light of the car's headlights. As we waited for the bus to come my mom started singing us
a haunting song. As the words, "I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again..." came out of her mouth both my sister and I burst into tears. It was a poor song choice for sure. We cried and cried, and nothing my mom could do would stop us. Eventually the bus came so we wiped our tears and gave a sorrowful goodbye to my mom, who now, we weren't sure we would ever see again. My mom did travel safely, and did make it back to us a few days later...
Fast forward twenty three-ish years (MAN, that makes me old!) I'm the mom now. I've been traveling a lot for work lately and I didn't realize what a toll it was taking on my kids. One night after we had finished scriptures and family prayer we were talking about our plan for the week, and how much we would miss each other. I started singing
"Cups". As I sang the words, "When I'm gone, when I'm go-on, You're gonna miss me when I'm gone..." both of my kids burst into tears. It was a flash back to that day, all those years ago when I was traumatized in the very same way. They cried and cried, until finally I wiped their tears and tucked them in to bed with a promise to bring them a surprise from my trip.
It was a lesson for me... No more singing!
