His mother’s favorite song was released in 1965 by a band from across the ocean. She loved it. She sang it all the time.

On the morning he was born she sang it all the way through the delivery, bellowing brokenly at the top of her lungs when the contractions tried to rip her insides out and softly when she barely had a breath. By the time he came into the world everyone in the delivery room was singing it too.

She sang it as she nursed him, holding him tenderly, gently brushing his hair from his damp little brow, gazing into his eyes. And when he was teething and everything hurt his little soul she’d place her lips against his fevered cheek and whisper-sing it till his sobs became hiccups and his body molded into hers and he eventually drifted into exhausted sleep.

When the bumps and bruises of a world that could never be as comfortable or safe as her arms no matter how hard she tried to make it so, comfort came through the familiar as he joined in and sang along with baby-lisped words, eyes huge with hurt and trust.

Throughout the trials of growing and trying and failing she’d wrap her arms around him and say, “It’s not your season, yet, Buddy. Keep doing your best and someday it will be your time.” And then she’d sing the song.

Sometimes he’d storm out of the room, “You just don’t get it, Mom!”

Sometimes he’d stay and let her finish before he’d sigh and say, “Yeah, maybe.”

One time he informed her that her favorite song wasn’t original. It had all been written out a few thousand years before by some old king.

“Really? Cool.” And of course, she then sang it all the way through and he laughed.

“Yeah, cool.”

As the years tumbled into decades, and he went from little league to college and career and marriage and fatherhood, the song still featured in his life as his mom sang it to his children and they sang it to him.

On the day he laid her to rest it was the last song those who knew and loved her sang together around her grave, through their smiles and their tears and their fondest memories.

And as the years turned, he sang it to his grandchildren and his great grandchildren, and they in turn sang to their own little ones. Each generation in its turn shared the words and the melody of a song sung by a band from across the ocean and written by some old king.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4ga_M5Zdn4