I used to hum a lot. I hummed while I did the dishes, made the beds and folded the laundry. I carried a tune with me as I climbed the stairs to the attic and foraged in the basement. Snatches of songs accompanied the drone of the vacuum cleaner and filtered through the shower noise.

There was always some kind of song dancing through my head and escaping across my lips, sometimes almost silently, and other times, audible enough to turn heads. I danced through life -- moving quickly through the days, propelled by an internal rhythm.

My mother used to hum, too. In fact, as I grew up, I noticed quite a few people in my world seemed to have an internal dance band directing their movements. My sister and I used to hum while setting the table, and after dinner, we often broke into chorus while Dad played the piano. We had sing-along sessions that seemed to speed the chores along. Dad would play the "wild stuff," and then Mom would take over the keys, filling our house with the drama of Beethoven, the gentleness of Mozart and the pure joy of her own compositions. There was always music somewhere in our family.

As a teenager, I discovered the radio and followed my sister's travels into rock 'n roll and other sounds that weren't always acknowledged by our parents as music. We read to music, danced to the radio, dressed to tunes, showered to the current "hits" and even studied by the rhythms of our generation. In fact, studying to the sounds of silence was simply unheard of.

A radio was second only to a mirror as the most important accessory in a car! We used to entertain ourselves on long, car trips by singing every camp song we knew. Later, the car radio kept us awake.

Music was always a part of my life. From the humming we did during chores to singing around a campfire to the thousands (millions?) of hours spent in piano lessons to the lullabies I sang to my own children, music accompanied the rhythms of my life.

My husband and I once cleared a dance floor with our rendition of "Zorba, the Greek," and my dad told me he could "definitely hear me" as I performed with the "Angel Chorus" in kindergarten! We started our marriage with music, and although the tunes and sounds have changed, the music continues.

I'm not sure music has always accompanied mankind, but surely it has become a reflection of our emotions. We move to a thousand different rhythms, each listening to his own song, his own pattern. Sometimes we join songs, sometimes we are solitary in our dance. But always, there is sound.

Music knows no time frames and a song can transport us to wherever memory plays the tune. Hearing an old favorite can bring back not only the physical sense of "being there," but the emotional experience as well.

Hearing "our song" can bring a smile or tears . . . as the pages of the mental scrapbook are turned once again. We are transported backacross the years and often find ourselves temporarily reliving the scenes so anchored with that music.

We may find ourselves crying over a song on the radio, remembering the moments when that song spoke to our hearts. We may find a smile flickering across our soul, as certain words and notes reach deep into memory to highlight a special moment. The wonderful birthday party, the moment when love was first acknowledged, the peace of some melodies, the pain of others . . . all come flooding back when the music plays. It is as if time had never passed and we are once again, young, foolish, in love, in sorrow, lost, found or whatever we were when THAT SONG played.

Music somehow reaches beyond the mind and finds those places that we keep secret -- even from ourselves. It stretches beyond the carefully erected walls and sneaks past the buried pieces. It touches us as nothing else can.

But sometimes, the music is still. I stopped humming once. The music simply died. There were no sounds, it seemed. Even my mother's gentle humming of a long cherished lullaby could not reach the stillness that death brought. Perhaps there was song, but I could not hear the music . . .  grief had stolen away the notes.

I moved to no rhythm. We stumbled, fell and simply lay numb across the earth. The music had died.

But my mother refused to let the songs go. Gently, persistently, lovingly, she kept the sounds alive. Whenever she would visit, she hummed as she washed the dishes, hummed while she weeded my neglected garden and rocked us all in her arms. Knowingly, she refused to let the silence win and she wound the music box, so painfully silent.

She caught us by surprise with her piano playing one night and as our still-aching daughter tried to move her grief stricken body to its tantalizing tones, we too, were drawn into the healing sounds. How long it had been since joyful sounds had echoed in our hearts!

No one understood our pain, yet my mother brought the  music back. She sang again the camp songs, the ones I had whispered to HIM as we rocked our way through such sick and endless nights. Death had stolen not only our light, but our sound as well, and it was my mother who brought it back.

Our voices were shaky (some still are), but as we let the humming come back, we found the memories of happier times returning as well. We chuckled as we remembered our own car trips -- singing at the top of our lungs, making up the words when we couldn't remember the right ones. We remembered the "Happy Birthday" song and the lullabies and the "I'm-scared-so-let's-sing" songs.

In her wisdom, my mother knew the silence wouldn't last forever, and she knew that we sometimes need some help in picking up the tune again. She simply refused to let death steal away the songs. We sang while we played. We sang while we worked. We sang while we cried and we healed as we sang.

Even as death began to still my mother's voice, she refused to grow silent. She hummed and when that was gone, she tapped her fingers to some secret melody. And finally, only her eyes danced, but dance they did! Just like HIS had!

Did they both hear a song of life that we could not imagine? Are there songs yet to be sung, with words I do not know?

Can you hear the music of your own self? Sometimes, joyous, sometimes sad, sometimes so silent the emptiness echoes? Listen! Grow still in your frantic flight from pain and find the music of your memories. Death may have stolen the arms that used to hold us, but even Death cannot still the sounds of love given and received.

Is it any wonder that on a still and silent night we can almost hear the Heavens humming? It's LIFE still singing . . . endless voices, humming, singing, bellowing, crying, laughing, living.

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