Sunday, April 6, 2014

Butterfly Kisses

Something just happened.  It took me so much by surprise that I had to write about it.

There I was, practicing my piano like a good girl when I decided to play around with one of my fun piano books.  I looked at the index of titles and saw "Butterfly Kisses."   I opened the book to this piece.  It looked like a pretty simple arrangement, and I thought it would be fun to learn it for Mandy's return home.

As I started playing it, I could feel the emotions churning inside of me.  I don't think anything has thrown me back in time so fast in a very long time.

I saw Mandy's pre-school graduation.  She stood proudly with her little friends, wearing a white dress shirt from her Daddy's closet and a white mini version of a graduation cap covering her blonde curls.  We were in the local grade school auditorium, and it must have been 85 degrees in there.  The slide show started.  One slide after another rolled by, and all of the girls in the class were featured as the strains of "Butterfly Kisses" filled the auditorium.  I began to cry.  The tears mingled with the drops of perspiration already rolling down my face, so I think my reaction was probably unnoticed, thank God.  In similar fashion, the tears flowed as I played this song in my living room for the first time.

The song followed us to grade school.  Every year, Mandy would dress in her finest and accompany her Dad to the St. Amelia School father-daughter dance.   And every year, they danced to "Butterfly Kisses".  It grew in my mind to symbolize a relationship that, on the surface was loving, but in fact was actually incredibly complex and remains complex to this day.

It seems surreal to me that I will be able to play this song on the piano.   It feels like an amazing gift.  Now I wonder if I will ever be able to play this song without crying...... hmmmm.........  I guess I'm going to find out.

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