You Are There: Hearing the words for the first time

I began my long-awaited call to duty this week and took my first round of grief counselling calls  (miscarriage related). They were, of course, really poignant for me on a personal level. I have begun to see my role as a future counsel take shape. I like what I see. Most of all, I am shocked at how little it takes out of me while I am still being of great shape-shifting, behaviour-changing use to others I am in dedicated service to - going on feedback such as that which I received just yesterday from one of my lovely clients (not a grief counselling recipient), who called me a "miracle" (err... perhaps I ought to give her Steve's phone number and he can fill her in on all the ways I might not quite be one of those...).

Such humbling work, I can't even share it for it is not mine. But I will get a post out before long regarding my personal growth from what I have been involved with. Sometime. Not yet.

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It's time to share with you another moment when something so sweet and uplifting has come through all my conscious filters to reach me in a most intimate, private, lonely, sole, soul space.

I was in the kitchen by myself, cooking dinner for the family after a long day working outside with Steve. He was with the LGBB while she had her (much needed - she made puddles today in a back yard that was already a mud pit, soooo much fun!) bath.

I started an iTunes genius mix, which had the old regulars in it:  Madeleine Peyroux, Biréli Lagréne, Eva Cassidy, Sara Gazarek, Sarah Vaughan, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald... We listen often to music like this. One of our latest finds (and favourites) in the past year or so has been Stacey Kent, thanks to none other than Steven Tyler, of Aerosmith fame. She sings beautifully and complements our stable of gorgeous music perfectly.

I've heard the album of hers that we have many times now. Certainly heard this particular song so many times that I couldn't count for you how often it has played through our speakers. But tonight, for whatever reason, while I was thinking back on the week that has been, I was unconsciously casting my net out wide to capture the essence of my forever-babe.

My beautiful Ellanor.

While I busied my hands, pulling pasta out of the cupboard, shallots out of the fridge, heating the olive oil in the pan, thinking at the same time about the little piece of us who would never take her place at the table after a bath, the song below came on. And I heard the words for the very first time.

Love songs are like this. The more wistful or yearning, the more they could just as easily be singing about a lost loved one and not just an unrequited love.

So, I hope you enjoy the voice of Stacey Kent and this charming heart-pull of a song.

In the evening
When the kettle's on for tea
An old familiar feeling settles over me
And it's your face I see
And I believe that you are there

In a garden
When I stop to touch a rose
And feel the petals soft and sweet against my nose
I smile and I suppose
That somehow maybe you are there

When I'm dreaming
And I find myself awake without a warning
Then I rub my eyes and fantasize
And all at once I realise

It's morning
And my fantasy is fading like a distant star at dawn

My dearest dream is gone
I often think there's just one thing to do
Pretend the dream is true
And tell myself that you are there