When Kids Steal the Show

He was cool about it. The word ``recital'' simply didn't faze my 6-year-old grandson.

This is how he saw it: People would come and listen to him play the piano, and afterwards, he'd bow and they'd clap. Then on the way home, he and his dad would stop and get an ice cream.

``What song are you going to play?'' I asked him a few days before the Big Event. ``Baa Baa Black Sheep,'' he answered, then ran to the piano to give me a preview.

This is what I love about children, that they are all innocence and confidence. ``I can do that.'' ``I can play the piano.'' ``I can sing that song.'' ``I can run fast.'' ``I can climb high.'' ``I can. I can. I can.''

Adults, on the other hand?

My recital was right after Adam's.

Same place. Same teacher. Only I had taken singing, not piano lessons. It was a 10-week course, and there were eight students, the majority of us grandparents. We'd come for fun. And we'd had fun, practicing in a private room with just each other. We had learned how to breathe and phrase and stand still on a stage and pronounce the ``r'' in words (being from New England we tend to overlook our ``r's'') and not insert ``r''' in words like ``saw.''

And, most important? We had learned to not look terrified while we sang.

None of the children in Adam's class had to learn to not look terrified. They weren't. They were happy. They were unselfconscious. They were enjoying themselves. They smiled. They frowned sometimes, but only when concentrating. Each of them played a tune alone, ``Baa Baa Black Sheep'' or ``Hot Cross Buns.'' Then they played a duet with a parent or a friend. And finally they all played together.

And at the end of the performance, they stood in a semi-straight line and grinned and bowed and giggled.

And then they went home.

A half-hour later, it was the adults' turn.

We stood up and sang. We remembered how to stand. And we remembered the words. People clapped. We got flowers. Then there was an intermission.

That's when my 6-year-old granddaughter Lucy took the stage. The mike was still on and the stage was still lit and she'd been watching, first her cousin Adam and his friends play the piano, then person after person come up to the mike and sing.

Lucy loves to sing. She knows the words to every song that was ever in a Disney movie, plus almost every song from ``Oklahoma,'' ``State Fair,'' ``Annie,'' and ``Scrooge, the Musical.''

Hardly anyone noticed her at first because people were talking and getting drinks and milling around.

But then they did, because there she was, this pretty little girl, holding onto the mike, smiling and singing away, totally happy, totally enjoying herself.

Lucy has Down syndrome, and it's hard sometimes to understand her words. But the words are there, in her head and this night on her lips, too. She sang and people clapped. And she sang some more.

And then intermission was over and it was part two of the show and everyone seemed a little more relaxed, I like to think because Lucy showed them how.

The last song was one I'd chosen, ``Young at Heart.'' I began it alone, but Lucy was right there, near the stage, so I beckoned to her and she came running.

And the night ended where it began.

``Don't you know that it's worth every treasure on earth to be young at heart,'' I sang with Lucy in my arms.

And she took her hands and cupped my face.

And the audience applauded and believed.