Our first granddaughter, the lovely Madelyn Simone, will be celebrating her tenth birthday this month. How can that be? It was only yesterday when we were cuddling together on the couch on Blake Avenue, watching “Say Yes to the Dress.” Precious memories.
Madelyn had an amazing ability as an infant to recognize one particular song that begins: “Down in the Treme, just me and my baby.” In the middle of a massive six-month-old meltdown, if John Boutté’s notes began to fill the room, she would immediately turn off the tears and listen intently. Often it soothed her, but at other times, she wailed again as soon as the song was over.
Not to be outdone by her older cousin, the sweet Emma Belle, age eight months, has her own favorite music. I heard about her giftedness from her parents, but I experienced it first-hand this week as we spent an afternoon together. Since I’m completely unable to navigate their TV remote, Dan thoughtfully sets me up with re-runs of Law and Order SVU in the background as Emma and I play or nap for a bit. When SVU’s iconic theme music starts, Emma freezes, her head turning to the television. Once it’s over, she nonchalantly resumes her previous activity. Even if napping, she’ll startle awake, take in the music, and contentedly fall back to sleep. It’s an amazing thing to witness.
Writing for National Geographic, Amanda Fiegl explains one possible reason for Emma’s connection with the Law and Order music: “There are studies indicating that infants remember sounds experienced during the last couple of months before birth, although the hearing environment in the womb is very different – more like hearing under water.” For nearly two months, Emma’s mother was hospitalized with pregnancy complications, and SVU episodes helped the endless afternoons pass by. At times, Becky and I would ask each other: did we see this one before? Maybe we did, but since we couldn’t remember who was finally convicted of the crime, we watched again. As a result, baby Emma was exposed to the “da-dum” of the theme music on a regular basis.
Those were harrowing weeks for Dan, Becky and the extended family, as Emma’s birth was anticipated at any time from twenty-four weeks on. One of the ways we coped with the uncertainty of those days was to write, both on a private social media page and in journal entries. In a desire to collect our words in one place, I created “Waiting for Emma Belle,” a book (now on Amazon) capturing the words and images of hopefulness and fear that were a part of our journey, realizing howevery pinch and prod, every sleepless night and nauseous morning, and every anxious moment were redeemed when a squalling Emma Belle was placed in their arms.
Frederick Buechner’s words make sense to me: “The power of stories is that they are telling us that life adds up somehow, that life itself is like a story. And this grips us and fascinates us because of the feeling it gives us that if there is meaning in any life . . . then there is meaning also in our lives. And if this is true, it is of enormous significance in itself, and it makes us listen to the storyteller with great intensity because in this way all his stories are about us, and because it is always possible that he may give us some clue as to what the meaning of our lives is.”
It is no accident that the word ‘history’ includes the word ‘story.’ This week, we’ve acknowledged the 75thanniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz with story. We relate the kindness of others with story. We claim the heritage of our family with stories of my grandmother Anna who couldn’t feed her babies and a newly-discovered great-great-grandmother Elizabeth Lauer (nicknamed Lizzie, just like our delightful and determined Elizabeth Holiday).
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