The Path to the Moon

Today I ran into some friends whose kids have grown up across the street from mine. Their oldest, Daniel, whom I've known since he was a little boy, is a junior in college. Their next child is a daughter who is a senior in high school, and she will be my daughter's roommate when they go to college next year.

Back when these kids were small, and we all lived across the street from each other, my wife was the music educator at the school the kids attended. One of the songs Daniel learned in chorus was Eric Thiman's "The Path to the Moon." Daniel had a beautiful voice, which matched his gentle personality. One year, on his mother's birthday, he came in from a baseball game and stood in the kitchen, sweaty and dirty, and sang "The Path to the Moon" as a birthday gift for his mother. She asked my wife for a copy of the music so she could remember that wonderful gift. It was a gift so precious that it took a long time for us to be able to talk about it without being prevented by the lumps in our throats.

When I asked after Daniel this morning I learned how he was succeeding in college, and getting ready for the exams necessary for applications for medical school. I asked his mother if she thought he remembered "The Path to the Moon," and she replied that she knew he did, because he had sung it for her again over Christmas holidays. She also said that she had the sheet music in their family's safe-deposit box, among their other irreplacable items.

As parents and as music educators we treasure a lot of things about the children we raise and the children we teach. For me, this story illustrates a near-perfect combination of memorable things: Wonderful parents, a caring teacher, and a precious ten-year-old boy who "longed to sail the path to the moon." And although it was surely a lot of fun, I'd bet that neither Daniel nor his parents remember much about the baseball game he played that night. But there is nothing in heaven or earth that could make them forget a note of that beautiful singing.