Rocks and Rolls

From the beginning of our experience it was clear to me we were going to need more than one I-pod. In the absence of their parents, the children were drawn to the familiar playlists on their mother's device. Claire and Jane especially demanded listening to their mother's favorites alone, curled up with headphones attached. Over and over again they heard friendly voices in Allison Krauss, Nickel Creek and Mindy Gledhill. In the music they felt their parents, they cried and were comforted together.

We shifted and shared until one night when we came home from an outing to a dark house. On the kitchen counter were three I-pods red, pink and green for Claire, Jane and Ollie. We put them to bed that night with their heads full of memories. And from that night on, the I-pods were a second best to their own parents singing them to sleep.

As it turns out, our benefactor was none other than James Valentine. James is known to the world as the lead guitarist for Maroon 5, though to us he is also our sister-in-law Lisa's little brother. I know he knows how important music can be, how it can soothe little hearts and make sense out of the senseless. But still, I hope he knows how much his kindness meant to us. We are very grateful to know someone who could do this for us, but even more, we are grateful that he did.

I'd like to share with you one of our favorite songs we listened to during this period in our lives. This song is called "My Darling" and it is a cover of a Wilco song. It comes from Ryan Tanner off of Scott Wiley's Baby Mine compilation album. I think you can see why it meant so much to us.

My Darling