A new baby brings a song to her heart

The Boston Globe

Beverly Beckham

Lucy is my first grandbaby, and her song just came. I didn't expect it, so I didn't go looking for it. It found me.

I was singing all the time back then, when my first daughter was pregnant. "You Are The Sunshine of My Life" and "My Special Angel." "You'll Never Know Just How Much I Love You" and, of course, "Baby Love."

The baby wasn't even close to being born, but I was already head over heels in love. And people in love are known to do some strange things, like walk on clouds and burst into song.

I did both. The cloud thing was temporary, but the singing went on and on. "The very thought of you and I forget to do, the little ordinary things that everyone ought to do." This song lassoed me.

I woke up one day humming it, and I sang it constantly - when I was cooking, when I was cleaning, when I was alone in the car, whenever (and this was always) I thought of this tiny, new person I couldn't imagine, but knew I loved.

The very thought of her dominated everything. It rose to the top of my consciousness like cream in milk. I'd shake it away, sometimes, but it always reappeared. "The mere idea of you, the longing here for you. You'll never know how slow the moments go 'til I'm near to you."

And then she was born, a 5-pound sack of sugar, so tiny, so sweet, and I sang it into her ear and rocked her to sleep day and night, night and day. And the song became her song.

Now she is 3, and when I ask her, "Want me to sing you your song, Lucy?" she says, "Yes," and climbs onto my lap and rests her head on my shoulder and sings along with me.

Adam didn't have a song until after he was born, until after I held him and rocked him and fell in love with him, too. His song arrived unbidden one night. "You made me love you, I didn't want to do it." A funny song to sing to a baby. But the words are true. "You made me love you. And all the time you knew it. I guess you always knew it."

For I was too busy singing to Lucy to be thinking about a song for him. For months I rocked him to sleep to "Hush little baby don't you cry" and a lot of "Shh-shh-shhes" until this song floated into his room and into my head.

And it was the right song for him, for us. Now when I put him to bed, or when we're just sitting on the couch, this is the song I sing.

Another baby is on the way - a sister, we tell Adam - and once again, I haven't been humming any tune specifically for her. Because the days are full of "The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round" and "It's Signing Time for Alex and Leah" and "That's What Friends are For." (Thanks to an all-dressed-in-purple singing bear!)

But I've been thinking about her song, wondering if she would even have a song. And then the other day, in the car, when the kids were somewhere else and the radio was playing, I heard the tune that I know is hers.

"It's not the pale moon that excites me, that thrills and delights me. Oh no, it's just the nearness of you." I've been singing it since. It's in my head. That's what happens. When the song is right, it fills you up and floats above everything else.

And so I wake to it. I hum it making coffee. And I dream to it, imagining another new person I already love. "I need no soft lights to enchant me, if you'll only grant me the right, to hold you ever so tight. And to feel in the night, the nearness of you."