“Sing For Me” – from Dr. Nathaniel’s Journal

“Daddy, I sing for you? Daddy, Daddy, I sing for you?”

I get this question all the time.

“Daddy, please may I sing a song for you?”

An excited countenance. An expectant spirit.

A hopeful heart.

My children—eager to sing.

Kids are so sweet. Not afraid of vulnerability. Never attempting to mask attention’s plea. Just heart-excited to share a new skill, story.

Or song.

In heaven, we’re told, the Divine’s wonder pales everything precious. So much so that the likes of gold are used simply to pave streets.

I wonder if a similar phenomenon occurs here, too. If treasure is so common that I fail to notice it—even below my feet.

Does the extraordinary get lost in the ordinary? Or am I the one who scrambles to block realization in her grand entrance? Fear overriding my longing for comprehension.

Do I lower the stage curtain on reality’s tragedy?

My kids’ stories are not merely dark scripts of fiction. Each is a horribly, horribly real tome.

An account I’m afraid to audience.

And yet.

And yet.

Our life-theater now rings with great laughter and spirit-applause. Childhood’s innocence.

And this recurring scene of charming figures who look up at me from the woe of their past to express hope’s anthem: “Daddy, may I sing for you?”

Could any phrase be more articulate in goodness’ celebration of evil’s impossible transformation to joy? A wounded spirit now so eager to sing must certainly be the miracle of miracles. Wonder beyond the mind’s comprehension, but somehow never more potently rational. The clearest sky on the darkest of nights. Beautiful. And perfect.

“Daddy, may I sing a song for you?”

“Yes, my child,” I say on cue. “Sing for me.”

And then, to myself, I say, “Look down.

“Look down. Surely we tread upon gold.”

“Si no hubiera rocas en su lecho, el rio no cantaria.”

[If there were not rocks in its bed, the river would not sing.]

—unknown