The singing blues

My parents met in a mandolin orchestra. From the time I was little I heard them play beautiful duets with melody lines that passed back and forth, playfully, between the two instruments. Our home was always full of music. I took piano lessons, dabbled in the viola and played the trombone in my high school band. I also sang in choirs from the age of ten. So, when I became a mother, singing to my baby came as naturally to me as nursing him or constantly sniffing and kissing his sweet head.

Every day and night I would sing to Zachary; lullabies, nursery rhymes, oldies that my mother had sung to me. When he was an infant, we would snuggle into a favourite upholstered chair, I would cradle him in my arms and serenade my baby boy. I remember the way he would gaze up deeply into my eyes and how his tiny hand felt against my skin. It was rapturous to enfold him and croon away. Sometimes we even danced. He loved all the tunes, and before he could talk, would coo along and attempt, phonetically, to fill in a word at the end of a phrase, which I would pretend to have forgotten. Then suddenly, at about the age of three, he stopped liking it. Each time I would start to sing, Zachary would cry. I stopped singing.

When the singing stopped
It was mostly the lullabies and softer tunes that set him off. "The water is wide, I cannot cross, neither have I the wings to fly, give me a boat that can carry two, and both shall row, my love and I." He wailed loudly and atonally. I stopped. Every few months I'd try again -- but there was no way. I was devastated. Never before had I made a listener cry -- that I knew of. Some days this felt like the worst rejection I had ever known -- he wasn't pushing away the music that I was lovingly creating -- he was pushing me away. His reaction stung like a slap.

At this juncture, I should mention that Zach has a form of autism. Although he is quite high functioning, he has many challenges. One of the physical disorders with which my son copes courageously is "hypersensitivity." This means that he hears, sees, feels, smells and tastes things differently, more intensely than others do. So, if a neighbour, down the street, would mow the lawn Zach would pace frantically around the house with his forearms over his ears, until they were done. He still can't endure the sight or feel of wet-looking or creamy foods, preferring dry surfaces. Just to look at cream cheese, peanut butter or cake batter can trigger a gag reflex. When he was about a year old and starting to eat solid foods we wanted to encourage self-feeding. I discovered that if I wrapped tiny pieces of meat and vegetables in bread and left them on his highchair tray he'd pick them up and devour them. Otherwise he refused to touch food, no matter how hungry he was.

Naturally, I turned to his hypersensitive hearing to help rationalize his acute reaction to my singing. I soothed my pain by telling myself that it was simply the sound that hurt his ears.