Alike. A tribute to my mother.

Yesterday when I was driving to work, I had gospel music going--real loud with the windows rolled down and it was 50 degrees outside, but sunny.  I was playing a song called "Lily in the Valley".  It's super old-school in it's arrangement, like you are sitting in a hot, humid church in the South in the 60's, waving a fan, while the congregants and the choir, all African American, sing like they just learned how or like they've been singing it since they've been born--with gusto, earnestness, honesty and a smile.  The harmonies repeat "There's a lily in the valley, bright as the morning star...there is a lily in the valley, bright as the morning star, there is a lily in the valley, bright as the morning star. Amen.  Amen. Amen."  And the author of the song has many people finding beautiful things in this valley...they find love, joy and peace, and they find it repeatedly.  There's even a solo from "grandpa"--They call him up to the mic, "Let Grandpa say his peace."  His voice is shaky, but when he says, "Somebody found love in the valley bright as the morning star" there's the authority of a life behind those words that tell you they cannot be contradicted.
  With the music playing and I'm singing just as loud as the volume, my voice catches involuntarily.  These words matter deeply, that love in the valley matters deeply.  And I think of my mother.  I remember growing up, singing next to her in church or singing next to her in the car, and her voice catching.  The words couldn't come even if she tried, because something was so stirred up in her that caused her not to be able to say them...even if it was just for a few seconds, I heard it.  Here I am now, a woman of 37, and this thing that moved my mother moves me.  And I respond in the same way she does.  Isn't it funny what gets inherited, even involuntarily?  I think I began listening to gospel music because of her.  I was introduced to prayer because of her.  I sometimes preach too many a sermon to people who may tire of a sermon...just like she preached to me:-).
  My husband and I got to spend some time with my mom and the rest of the fam around Christmas time.  Of course, we took tons of pictures, and as my mother was looking through a few of them, she said as she was looking at a picture of me, "This looks just like me.  I thought that was a picture of me."  I heard the in credulousness in her voice.  Like she couldn't believe it.  It really is a wonder.