Have you ever had one of those mornings when you wake up in a puddle of saliva that isn’t yours next to a mangled guitar and slowly begin to realize you’ve been swallowed by a 50-foot, 66,000 lb aquatic mammal?
I sit up and try to put all the pieces together. (Why am I holding a ukulele?) The last thing I remember is the Speech Language Pathologist at school saying the words “possible apraxia of speech.”
Not sure where you are going with this, but the image being projected is me at college with my first guitar, before it became the unplayable pile of ruins next to me. People have gathered around asking what I am playing. It’s 1998, so obviously it’s Closer to Fine by Indigo Girls—why do they not know this? A friend of mine takes the guitar and begins untangling the knotted mess of chords I had spewed into the atmosphere. Turns out they did have good taste in music, I just couldn’t play.
Ten years later, I wasn’t any closer to fine. I gave up and the guitar was stored in an attic over my parents’ garage. In the rapidly changing temperatures, the bridge separated from the base of the guitar and it became the physical representation of a dead dream.
The images fast forward twenty years. I had a child who could not imitate sounds at the age of 2. We signed him up for some pretty aggressive therapy for his second year of life, but even with the day-in-day-out efforts from our amazing SLP Ilene, he could not even imitate animal sounds. Sign language was difficult because he couldn’t imitate motions.
My son was trapped in his own little interior world. The one area where we felt we could connect with and motivate him was music. Based on his pointing alone we were able to figure out that he liked certain songs and wanted them repeated. He would “conduct” with one hand while listening to Bach and we began to see that the movements were sometimes in sync with the rhythm.
We decided to give Music Therapy a try. I knew he had a lot brewing in that little mind of his and was desperate to unlock him and give him an outlet. We hired a very skilled and patient therapist who even let Caleb play her guitar with his feet.
It was an unmitigated disaster. At one point his tantrums were so bad he was unable to make it through the half-hour session. It didn’t make any sense, but very little did with our little guy at that time. We stopped the therapy.
One unexpected thing that came out of this experience was my introduction to the ukulele. The therapist explained that ukulele was “guitar light” and would help me master some of the basics before trying the guitar again. I purchased a Kala that same day, daydreaming about playing some of Caleb’s favorite songs for him. This would never happen. Whenever I played, Caleb would scream, show me the thumbs-down sign, and pull the ukulele out of my hands. It was like living with a miniaturized caricature of an angry musical conductor, complete with wild hair.
I was used to abandoning everything that did not coexist well with my little guy, but apparently I had a line I would not cross the width of a ukulele string. Maybe it was his harsh criticism that spurred me on. Ukulele became something just for me. I noticed even ten minutes of playing changed my mood and my outlook. I would play every chance I could get (while he was out of earshot).
Eventually I worked up to a travel guitar. Old frustration resurfaced with the addition of two strings and I felt like giving up again. I wanted to learn to play so desperately, but I was so bad at it! Changing from the C-chord to a G-chord was 20 seconds of finger twister. The many years of trying and failing were weighing heavily on the side of quitting again. Then I did something new. I prayed and asked You to help make it happen.
Turns out free Youtube lessons not available 20 years ago—very helpful! You showed me that I was approaching learning the guitar (and teaching my son) the way a small child would wait impatiently for a plant to grow the same day the seed was planted. I had two new SLPs—Ms. Risa and Ms. Katie—working with my son that would teach me the same lesson, because what did end up unlocking him was the very thing I did not think was working. Sometimes, progress is happening deep under the soil, in Your timing, not mine. It doesn’t mean I abandon the seed or dig it up and try to replant it in better soil. Sometimes it is just about water, sunlight, nutrients, and time.
I focused on learning the G chord and playing it well. I couldn’t push down hard enough to make the chord sound right. You told me to trust You. I practiced the same thing for days. Calluses formed and a clear sound emerged.
For weeks and weeks, Caleb’s SLPs prompted his motor planning by pointing to their closed mouth. He was falling short of the requested word “moo,” but was undaunted. He would take the cards from speech home and carry them around the house, practicing the /m/ sound and clapping for himself. After much practice, Caleb made and imitated the sustained sound of /m/.
I practiced the C chord and then practiced just the fingering, moving from C to G then back again. I was discouraged by how clumsy it was and how much time it took. You told me to keep going.
Caleb made the sound /m/ then /ooo/ with the help of an open-mouthed prompt. He was unable to blend them together but persevered, carrying the cow speech card around like a Linus blanket.
I began to strum.
The SLP gave Caleb the two prompts in rapid succession. Caleb finally put both sounds together to say “Mmmmmooooooooo.”
I practiced more chords and I quickened my transitions between them.
Caleb said “Moo” with the correct single syllable. “Mama,” “Dada,” and “Chris” (the name of his one-on-one aid) followed toward the end of his 4th year. He would play the part of the teacher, having us repeat him while giggling uncontrollably.
I played my first song and felt like I had conquered an unscalable mountain.
Soon after he turned 5, Caleb started saying sentences. His frustration greatly reduced. He learned to spell out words if we could not understand him and also use props to get his thoughts across. After a year of hard work he was not just able to say a few words in simple sentences, we got to see his personality forming exponentially as he joked with us, problem-solved, and faced obstacles with determination and poise.
I thought my request for help playing the guitar was small and insignificant, too small to bother the God of the Universe about. You were just waiting to be called into the struggle, ready to pull that guitar mangled by stubbornness and impatience out of my hands and replace it with a ukulele-shaped life lesson. You showed me that learning to play a stringed instrument has a lot in common with learning to speak, especially if speaking does not come naturally. As I struggled alongside him, You gave me a more intimate understanding of the obstacles and frustrations my son faced. As I progressed, You gave me hope where I had seen impossibility.
Maybe Music Therapy failed because he was upset that he couldn’t make the instruments sound the way the therapist could—mirroring his frustration of not being able to speak to communicate.
Which means we can circle back to it.
He may make it on The Voice, yet.
Lord, You work things for our good. Thank You for strengthening my weak muscle of discipline and better qualifying me to understand and teach my son. Thank You for teaching me in a way that provided me with a soothing outlet that set me on a path toward better self care. You are creating a song of praise in my life note by note, chord by chord. Help me to continue to trust You, even when You are the only one who can hear the song.