You Are My Sunshine

Like mothers have been doing for countless generations before me, I sang to my babies. I held them close when they were brand new in the hospital, during the darkest hours of those first mornings at home, any time they were sick or fussy, and they would nurse or snuggle as I sang to them. 

I had songs I made up for each of them, songs that were just their’s that had never been crooned to another baby before them, and I sang the old favorites that mothers and fathers have been singing to their tiny ones for years uncounted. 

One of our favorites was always You Are My Sunshine, and it was true for each and every one of them. I have sang You Are My Sunshine through both laughter and tears over the years, and it holds a very special place in my heart. I sang it as I walked around the base for hours, pushing four month old Parker in his stroller, because I couldn’t stand to be in the house when Michael had just left for his first deployment. I sang it while driving cross country solo with the boys, because Bash was just miserable in the van, and my singing was the only thing that helped calm him down until the next pit stop. I sang it to Eleanor as she’d fall asleep on my chest, curled into me like I was the safest place in the world. I whispered it to Mabel as I paced back and forth in the hospital with her, unable to sing because I was sick when she arrived and had almost completely lost my voice, but she wouldn’t seem to settle unless I was “singing” to her. 

It’s our song, and I still sing it over their beds at night when I’m tucking it in or doing my checks, because each and every one of them is sunshine in a perfect little human package. Especially my Tiny Girl, which is how she got her nickname, and how this entire project came to be called “Good Morning, Sunshine” after all. 

No matter the storm, I have sunshine with me always.