Marching With the Saints

My youngest son, YS, starts school half an hour after his siblings, so this morning, after I have safely deposited his brother and sister at their respective schools, he and I are home alone.

He is in the living room and I am in the kitchen. I hear him take out his guitar and begin playing “When the Saints Go Marching In”.

“How was that, Mummy?” he calls from behind the two walls that separate us.

“Perfect!” I yell back as I stuff cold pepperoni pizza into a sandwich bag for his lunch.

“Wait, wait. I’m coming in there. I’ll play and you sing. Okay?”

He thumps loudly across the floor as he makes his way into the kitchen. At nine, his feet are almost the same size as his eighteen year-old sister’s, although he is still a good foot shorter than she. He has yet to figure out how to maneuver these massive boats that have suddenly grown on the ends of his legs, and they get in his way when he pulls out the kitchen chair. He trips and his guitar twangs loudly and bangs against the table.

“Careful!” slips automatically between my lips, rushing to place some sort of magic shield around the guitar to protect it from the exuberance of my budding guitar protégée.

A cloud passes briefly over my son’s face. He breathes deeply and rolls his eyes so far back in his head that the irises threaten to disappear completely. I breathe and roll my eyes right back at him. With my mindless and annoying “careful” thus noted, we are now freed to move on.

YS settles his guitar in his lap and drapes his right arm over the top. He is barely big enough for the instrument, and the curve of the guitar’s body nestles snuggly in his armpit. His left fingers deftly find the proper fret and his right index finger begins to pluck at the strings.
I stand watching with a proud mother smile plastered across my face, while a tingle of joy sparks in my chest and expands in echoes until it bursts through my skin.

The music suddenly stops. My son’s fingers dangle loosely in front of the strings.
“Muh-meee!” He inhales deeply with the first syllable and forcefully exhales the latter, throwing my name across the room with the explosive breathing of a bellows.

“Wha-hut?!” I blow back to him.

“You’re supposed to be singing!”

“You’re right,” I admit. “Sorry. Can you start again? I’ll be ready this time.”

YS sighs, the breath coming all the way from his toes, and begins strumming.

“Oh when the saaa-ints…..go mar-chhhing iiiin….oh when the saaaa-ints….gooo...mar-chhh-ing iiin,” I warble, dragging out the words so I can keep time with his notes.

We march haltingly through the song.
Our version is, by no means, the “standard” version of the song. The rhythm is hesitant and the words are slightly off key, but when we finish, it is as though all the saints that have ever graced this earth, have marched right through our kitchen and I can feel the blessings that each and every one of them has bestowed upon us.

YS is beaming. “No mistakes!” he says with pride. “And you knew all the words!” he adds, letting a little of his pride spill over onto me. “Wanna do it again?”
“You betcha! One more time, and then it’s off to school.”
We do an encore performance for ourselves and it feels just as good the second time through.

As we walk down the driveway and turn down the sidewalk toward school, YS reaches for my left hand and holds it firmly in his right. His hand is warmer than mine and that warmth spreads through my entire body. Although no words pass between us, we simultaneously begin lifting out knees high and our walking turns into marching, and, even though the guitar has stayed at home, we can feel the saints marching right along with us, all the way to school.