Entertainment: James Beale's "A Parents Song" Copyright © 2009
First
public performance: NAAF* Conference
June 28, 2009, Houston, TX.
A Parents Song
Words and Music by Jim Beale
They grow up so fast their childhood doesn't last too long you blink and it's gone.
You think they'll be small a while safe from the world and its guile but then time marches on.
Life is a fusion of truth and illusion we get so fooled by time.
The clock on the wall moves from summer to fall next thing we're hearing the chimes.
They're helpless and small we're at their beck and call when they enter this world.
They astound and amaze so good at holding our gaze as their new lives are unfurled.
We treasure riding the rails through their first fairy tales and their very first songs.
We work hard to impress upon them what works out best and right things from wrong.
It's humbling to grasp the importance we play in the things that we do and the things that we say cause
they're taking some queues from how we're filling our
shoes and they're learning the breaks and the things
it will take to build a life, with their own unique insight.
Parties at school summers spent by the pool, half of life lived in a car.
Dance and music and sports sometimes we're so out of sorts from just how busy we are.
Pieces of life can be so filled with strife that we actually wish it away.
But there're moments so precious, once they has left us we'll wish we could have held time at bay.
We turn up our noses at smelling the roses as our children get older and we lend them our shoulder and
we sooth growing pains as they get drenched by the rains of their teen social order, their world gets
colder than we'd wish it to be for the sake of our dreams for their lives, but with love their dreams survive.
Every human who's ever walked this earth has never had a life free from struggle and pain,
there's time for conformity but wisdom and strength can't be gained by always traveling the grain.
We shield our children when they're young and still building the means for navigating their lives, then
they're slowly set free to learn on their own, but we're always there when they need a guide.
They can pick up the phone, they're never really alone, they've got family and friends, so much
depends on the support that we give, for they can't truly live without the love that we send, as they sway and
bend in the wind, where their seeds are being sown.
We suffer for their sakes, all the tacit mistakes, but we're still making them too, it's part of what humans
do, but when they get it right and their plans take flight, it's a beautiful thing to see what they can bring
to their world, and how they chose to spend their lives.
* National Alopecia Areata Foundation (NAAF)
Copyright © 2009 with all rights reserved by James Beale