To Let Go

Do you want to build a snowman?

       This is a picture of my grand-daughter, Virginia, from the spring of 2014. I was babysitting one evening, and while I had seen the advertisements for the new Disney movie, Frozen, and I knew that Ms V and her brother had already seen the movie, I myself was unfamiliar with the now very famous songs.

        When I got to the house and Sarah and John left for their date, Virginia announced that she was going to get her rocking chair – the rocking chair that had been mine when I was her age and then was her mother's at that age – and she ran down the hall to the playroom. Virginia returned to the living room with her rocker and put it in front of the window, “I'm going to watch the sunset!” she announced.

        My heart melted as she sat down, rocked, and looked out the window. Horatio, who had just turned two and who idolized (and still does) his sister, ran down the hall to the playroom and got his own rocker and carried it back to the living room to sit and rock next to Virginia and figure out what she was looking at out the window. My heart melted some more. 

        Then Virginia broke into song – she sang Do You Want to Build a Snowman? - from Frozen – instead of continuing to melt, my heart just broke right in two! She sang it with such earnestness – a little girl pleading for her sister to come play with her and not understanding at all why her sister won't come out from the other side of the door – who would make such a movie? Who calls that entertainment? It is just wrong!

        By the time I put my camera on Virginia, all I got was the picture and no video – she was done with the song. And she had completely finished me!

Singing at 2014 Recital

        Virginia then announced that she was going to sing another song from the movie – and she burst into the now ubiquitous Let It Go! I got some video – although I can't seem to find it right now – the video includes little brother H getting bored with the whole sunset thing and putting his rocker upside down and standing on top of it and smiling at the camera while V continued her second heart-wrenching song of the evening.

        She sang Let It Go throughout 2014 along with every other little girl across the land, and Virginia was Elsa for Halloween.....along with every other little girl across the land.

        This week I am in Chapel Hill hanging out with the Nelsons. Virginia is a typical five-year-old and every once in a while she will express a fit of temper because she wants to do one thing and Mom wants her to do something else, or Horatio has done something wrong and has not been properly punished for it, or life is just not going the way her logic thinks it should be. And I soon discovered that if I broke into the chorus of Let It Go whenever Ms V puts her displeasure to angry words, she momentarily calms down – what else can she do? It's her song!

       In years to come, Virginia will probably never forgive me for that.

       But it is turning out to be good for me – stresses of the past and present keep coming to the surface of my everyday life, and I start to feel like Virginia feels, and as the stresses bubble, my brain starts the chorus from Let It Go – let it go! Let it go! and I give myself the same smile that Virginia gave me.

V today teaches Sugar to Let it Go

       And it lets go!

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