Kathryn made me remember something today. About my grandparents. When my grandfather was in the hospital just before he died, he only remembered his life about 40 years earlier. His wife was his new bride, not the frail old lady that came in and visited him everyday, so that a stranger didn't have to feed him like a baby. He didn't know he had kids. To him, he thought he was his lost 30 yearold self.

But when my father would visit him, he would tell him stories about the past, not really realizing he was talking to his son, but eventually he would look up at him and say "Do the girls still sing? I would love to hear them sing again". My sister and I were fresh in his memory. Our voices brought him back to the present. So we would go into his tiny hospital room and sing for hours. I sang him "Summertime". It is the last song I ever sang to him.

I remember when I first discovered my love for that song. It was my Nanny and Poppy's 50th anniversary. My grand father had a big band. They asked my mother to sing at the celebration with the band. She had only done that once at her own wedding. You could see how excited she was to make music with her father. She practiced that song in our living room for months. So did I. I was 11, and I fell in love with "Summertime".

When we were getting ready for the party, decorating the club and such, my grandfather got me to go up on the stage and sing into the mic. "Sing anything" he said. I sang "Summertime" for the first time infront of anyone. My grandfather realized for the first time that I could really sing. The music was flowing from his soul to my mothers, then to mine.

Four months later he was dying of lung cancer. As much of our extended family came down to visit him... for the last time. I remember standing in the living room infront of the mantle, everyone asking me to sing a song. I sang "Summertime". When I sang that song, my voice was not that of a 12 year old, but it took on the age of all the generations of music that fed into me. It was the last song I ever sang to him.

After his death, my grandmother quickly went down hill. She always thought she would be the first to go. She visited us here much more. I don't think she like being in their house without him. She would always ask me to sing "Summertime". She would cry everytime. She said she was moved to tears because my voice and that song fit together so beautifully. She even said I sang it better than mom (something I have never told her). It was fitting then that like the others, this was the last thing I ever sang to her.

Each time this was not an intentional thing. It's just what has happened.

I don't sing Summertime anymore. I'll only sing it when it feels really right. I won't sing it to myself. I can't. That's not right. I won't sing it with my mother. I don't really even like hearing the song.

I'll sing it again, but not until it's right.