A Daughter's Tribute

My friend Heidi is a champion - generous, funny and a great animator in our local community. We are lucky around here because over the years our friends, formed through the connection of our kids' local primary school, have created a few music groups. Whilst my 'day job' (that happens mostly at night) is facilitating life time memories for parents and their kids, I do also belong to a band made up of four dads who play covers at our local shops once a month. We practice in my shed from time to time. This structure is the eponymous (I love the word 'eponymous') inspiration for our band name. SHeD! In fact one of our guitarist's kids thinks my name is actually 'SHeD'! It will be a sad day when he starts calling me Bill.

Heidi is part of a group of six local mums and dads called 'Sirens' who rehearse at our friends, Nick and Clare's place - they have a studio out the back and so you can see that the pattern of eponymous band names finished on a sequence of one as Heidi's band do not practice in a siren (I promise you that I will limit the bad 'dad' jokes to only one every few blogposts!)

Sirens and SHeD and other local parents' bands get together in the shed once a year for a big party... it is an annual tradition now. We have had many memorable 'Cold August Nights', 'Rocktobers' and 'Warm November Rain' parties over the last decade.

We had a different day last Saturday - Sirens and SHeD held a 'Parents Concert' at Heidi and Tony's place... the point of difference was that the parents there were my parents, Heidi's parents and the mums, dads and aunties of a number of the band members. Heidi's thinking was that it is rare that our own parents get to hear the music we make together. At the end of the day SHeD member, Tim's dad remarked that "it was just like going to your kid's school concert except that all the kids are in their fifties!" (NB - this blogger is still way early into his forties!)

So this extraordinary gathering played and listened... SHeD played first, and not being 'age-ist' still required (as is their custom) all song requests to be sent by text message, rather than called out verbally (far more efficient). My dad hogged the request line sending in texts at a pace that would exhaust the thumbs of even the most tech-savvy Gen Y-er. We shared food in between band performances. I tried to race one of Steve's (from Sirens) kids in eating as many of the beautiful chicken drumsticks made by his γιαγιά (pronounced ya-ya', Greek for Grandmother).

"How many did you have Bill?"

"Four" I said to Steve's son, feeling pretty confident I had won.

"I stopped after six" he declared with a conquering tone.

Sirens played next. I took a seat at the back just behind my mum and dad. I love listening to the girls sing and they had some new material. Dad leaned over to mum and I heard him share an insight...

"This is not just community but its world community".

In Sirens, Clare and Nick are Macedonian, Heidi was born in England, Lisa is Irish and was born in Wales, Sandra was born here in Australia and is fourth or fifth generation and Steve is Greek. Here was the world playing for us underneath what we call the 'West Preston skies!' I got a bit of a shiver... something special was happening. The mums and dads were clearly moved.

Heidi's 'parents' concert' idea had a simultaneous inspiration that I felt honoured to witness. For many years, she has had a poem written by her mum, Bonny, in her possession. I asked Heidi and Bonny's permission if this could be the topic of today's post. Here's some background that Heidi e-mailed to me earlier this week.

'Hi Bill, ... Sadly for your blog, my mum wrote that poem while she was bored at work and that’s about all she says about it although she definitely remembers writing it and it’s more than thirty years since she wrote it. I was about sixteen when I was ferreting through mum’s dresser looking for a pair of earrings. I found the earrings but I also found the poem stuffed (literally) into a drawer. I took it and thirty years down the track I asked some of our very talented friends to put it to music for me.'

The culminating moment was Heidi singing her mum's words in a song she had recorded with Stephen from SHeD and Nick from Sirens who wrote some music to go with them.

For Bonny - it was a total surprise. Heidi sang her words and then presented her mum with a CD recording of the song. Here are the lyrics...

I’d like to weave my dearest dreams
My fondest recollections
In silks of finest gossamer
And fairy floss confections
And as the gentle breezes blow
The silks float in the air
The fairy floss melts sweetly
And all my life is there

The snow white shapes of drifting clouds
The hot sand on my toes
The multi coloured butterflies
The fragrance of a rose
The careless days of golden youth
When time ran on forever
A world of dreams like Peter Pan
In lands of Never Never

To understand the sadness
To hear my music play
To live and breathe the many things
I find so hard to say
…so hard to say


Mingled tears and laughter
Of early adolescence
When moods were black and hopeless
Or bright and effervescent
Too old to run to mother
Too young to know the ways
The struggling in-between years
So bittersweet the days

And all these things would be there
In my tapestry of dreams
Wafting in the sunlight
And drifting in moonbeams
And just to make it perfect
My daughter would be there
To sense and feel the living
That’s trembling in the air

To understand the sadness
To hear my music play
To live and breathe the many things
I find so hard to say
…so hard to say

Bonny Cox

Heidi provided a stunning moment of tribute to her mum. It was palpable to those of us lucky enough to be there, that we had experienced something beautiful... a true act of love from a daughter to her mum.

My mum sent me a text the next day... 'Thx again 4 a lovely occasion yesterday. It was very special.'

In the work I do, the focus is often on the influence a parent or mentor can have on a young person... if you are a daughter or son reading this - never doubt the power you have to make your mum or dad feel like their efforts in raising you are appreciated. Heidi - I'm proud to count you as a friend. You made the world different last Saturday, in a very good way. And Bonny, thanks for your poetry.

And to you thanks for taking the 'Time and Space' to read this!

Bill Jennings - http://www.time-space.com.au