Edelweiss

I guess most kids are rocked or put to sleep at night by a story or a classic lullaby, but when I think of my childhood bedtimes, I remember hearing Edelweiss. This song is most known from the musical classic 'Sound of Music', and was actually the last song that Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote together. The Sound of Music was a huge hit, and it really hit home on my mother's side of the family as her mother and grandmother were born in Austria (where the movie takes place). I can remember watching that movie several times growing up, and nearly every time Captain Von Trapp would sit and strum his guitar and sing this to his children, my mom would tear up. He reminded her a lot of her father, who had died when she was sixteen...my grandfather, a native Italian, was also a man with a houseful of kids, a man in love with an Austrian woman, and a man who loved to make music and sing. I think such a strong memory of her father is the reason I was danced around the room as she sang this so many nights in the past.

Every time I hear the song Edelweiss, even now that I'm an adult when I re-watch the movie, I think of being a little kid, being held in my mom's arms. I remember the way her dark hair would feel, tickling my forehead, and the way her heart would sound underneath my ear as we semi-waltzed around my bedroom. I can remember how she would smell those nights, a strange combination of coffee and Pond's cold cream. And I can remember the words vibrating in her throat as I pressed my hand to it.

Edelweiss, edelweiss
Every morning you greet me
Small and white, clear and bright
You look happy to meet me

Blossom of snow may you bloom and grow
Bloom and grow forever

Edelweiss, edelweiss
God bless my homeland forever.

I think that will always be a song that makes me close my eyes for a moment, and remember being a little girl in the arms of my mother, who I thought then (and still do) was the best part of the world.