View From a Prairie Home

by Hege Hernfindahl, Columnist

I love music. I can’t remember a single day of my life that wasn’t filled with music. My earliest memory is of my mother sitting by my bed singing “Byssan Lull.” It is a dreamlike song about the outside world being far away and filled with uncertainties and even dangers. But how the child going to sleep is safe and loved. I remember being lulled to sleep by my mother’s beautiful voice. Even today, as an old woman, that lullaby fills me with warmth and a sense that nothing dangerous will happen.

I think of the lullaby today as the world to me has turned upside down and I, together with so many others, are filled with fear of the future. Maybe not so much for me, but mostly for my nine grandchildren with their whole lives ahead of them. I wrote about them last week, so you know they are my life’s greatest joy. My desire for them is to be able to develop and grow in freedom and without fear.

And as I do so many times when I feel sad, I turn to music and in my mind, I go back to my childhood. To my home where there was always music. My parents’ taste in music was eclectic. Bach. Grieg. Aretha Franklin. Puccini. Frank Sinatra. And lots of Norwegian children’s songs. They would listen to the radio or to their record player. My mother also played daily on the piano. Sometimes, she and I would sing together while she played.

I loved those times with my mother. Our relationship was troubled and filled with conflict. I felt like I never measured up to her vision of a perfect daughter. But there were times, like when we sang or even when we played duets on the piano, (me the very inferior piano player) when I felt that we were a perfect match. And when she told me stories about the war, she was open with me and I felt close to her. She, the story teller, I, the receptor of all she had to teach me about the importance of freedom in the face of so much fear of living under the cruelty of the Nazi regime.

After the war, a song was written especially for the youth who had fought against their oppressors and risked their lives every day. “Norge i Rødt, Hvitt og Blått.” (Norway in red, white and blue) When I sing this song, I always get tears in my eyes thinking about my parents and how young they were and how hard they had fought for our freedom.

Music. It binds people together. It lifts our spirits. While I was teaching, I would sing every day with my students. I knew that the best way to remember words were to sing. So, they also learnt foreign languages through songs.  After I retired, I joined the church choir. And I was again able to sing with other people, whom I soon regarded as my friends. We sing hymns that describe the complexities of human experiences and how God works his miracles helping us. My heart soars as all these human voices create beautiful music together. Nothing can express emotions like the human voice.

A while ago, Grant and I went to the Basilica of St. Mary to listen to a performance (in Italian) of “Suor Angelica” by Puccini. And I thought that not understanding the words, but knowing a little of what the opera was about (losing a child) heightened my understanding of the pain expressed by the voice of the opera singer.

I don’t know how my life would have been without music. How I would have survived the loss of Erland. Of Patrick. And now, filled with fear and uncertainty, I again turn to music. The outside world might be filled with unknown dangers, but I take comfort in being here, with my husband of 50 years, in an old house filled with music.