SLEEP PRETTY DARLING, DON’T YOU CRY

SLEEP PRETTY DARLING, DON’T YOU CRY

“Once, there was a way

To get back homeward.

Once there was a way

To get back home.

Sleep, pretty darling, do no cry,

And I will sing a lullaby.

Sir Paul McCartney provided an incomparable conclusion to the Grammy Awards on Sunday night with his rendition of ‘Golden Slumbers – Carry that Weight.’ After all these years and with his vocals showing age just a wee bit, he and his band delivered this song in the original key and with the exceptional skill and enthusiasm that has made him a legend in the music industry. I profile this performance because of lyrics of his selection. I only know about and write about Ayn Van Dyk but I don’t really know this little girl, and yet I think about her daily. I think about her daddy. I think about her mommy. The other day at 4AM and for some time I carried on a Facebook conversation with Ayn’s mom, Amie Van Dyk because I woke up and went online and found this woman almost alone online except for another friend in the Maritimes. Amie was expressing bursts of bullet thoughts obviously immersed in anguish and sorrow. She has not been able to see her daughter in months. She believes that the Ministry of Children in B.C. has created a dreadful injustice upon her girl and her family by an unnatural removal of this child and her placement in foster care. And Amie and Ayn’s dad, Derek, have virtually no recourse but to wait for the Ministry to show mercy or to wait until a court case tentatively scheduled for over a year from now which may result in a ruling that returns the child to the parents.

Back to McCartney’s song then. I couldn’t help but to relate these lyrics to Derek’s plaintiff cry for his daughter. I say Derek’s cry only because the chorus makes reference to a male having to “carry that weight.” This is a romantic ballad and yet I can hear a father’s voice singing for his daughter. Of course the words could equally be those of Ayn’s mother. The weight that these parents have been compelled to bear is enormous. It was and is unnecessary. Ayn is a child with autism. She wandered from home until she was found hours later back in June 2011. She can have tantrums, be fractious and aggressive. No Ministry anywhere in this Free World is morally justified to assume that it knows a parent is overwhelmed by responsibility and then to take a child away and effectively enslave her within a bureaucratic-judicial  prison.

Golden slumbers fill your eyes. Smiles awake you when you rise; sleep, little darling, do not cry, and I will sing a lullaby.

Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight, carry that weight, a long time. Oh yeah!

I never give you my pillow, I only send you my invitations. And in the middle of the celebrations, I break down.

Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight, carry that weight, a long time. Oh yeah!

Are you gonna be in my dreams tonight?

Love you, love you, love you, love you, love you, love you,

And in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make. Ah -