The Silent Singer

Part 1

When I was little I always hoped for the happiest day of the year. Christmas Day. Now, not so much. In a way I'm really excited for it like how my brother is... Sorta. But in another way dreading this day.  

It's the "happiest" day yet so many people are not experiencing the love and appreciation I am experiencing every day. There was this song that I learned back in elementary school, 5th grade to be exact. Here are the words I remember:

"People killing, people dying, children hurtin, you hear them crying. Would you practice what you preach would you turn the other cheek. Father, Father, Father, send somebody from above." 

Now I have several problems about this. First of all, why woul d people teach this to 10-11 year olds! Second of all, do they understand that we had no idea what this song even means, cause' we literally sang this through out our lunch periods as soon as we learned it. And third of all, it's a public school. You're not suppose to teach anything related to gods or the god. Especially if you are teaching a group of ten year olds, because they don't know better!

My point is why would the school teach us this song. Personally, I think that the school wanted to expose us to the real world without mentally scarring us in the process. Therefore, they used the children's talent against us. Singing. Man we sure could sing. I'm not just saying that, I mean it. If you would have put us on like American Idol, it wouldn't matter how young we were because we sang that good.

Every year the teachers would make contest for the Christmas, spring, and moving up/graduation shows. It was basically which class could sing the best. Now that I look back at that it seems quite odd considering that they were basically categorizing little kids based off of who is better than whom just by a natural talent. I mean because of the competiveness young children would judge their classmates singing abilities sometimes. On the bright side, I'm pretty sure that each teacher said "I think we won children!" to their class. Well, I hope they did because if they didn't then that's just cruel.  

I remember when I could sing and when I had guts. I thought I could sing. I mean people said "you are a great singer! Don't you forget it." that was actually something teachers said when I was younger. Were they lying though? No, they couldn't have. I sang in front of so many people so many times that someone even my parents would have said otherwise. 

Then again, I'm pretty sure people wouldn't want to break a little girls heart and say that she can't sing. I hope people would think that.  

Anyways, even if I was a good singer I didn't take advantage of it. I sang in a choir, took on a duet with "J-dog", attempted a solo, failed the solo, and never took on a solo part ever since that misfortunate event. I remember the day very clearly. The school choir went to a nearby nursing home for veterans during valentines day. We wanted to cheer up the veterans who had no family to say "I love you." We brought little care packages and sang some songs. I forgot the name of that song, the one a messed up in, and I'm glad I did because then whenever I would hear the song this memory that I hate would reappear in my mind like how it is now.  

So this is what happened. I was in the middle of a big room filled with veterans and I was smack in the middle of the choir group. The microphone was right in my face. The song started to play and we sing the introduction, then the chorus, and then the bridge. That was my part. I opened my mouth then closed it real fast. I missed my part in a blink of an eye. The teacher continued playing but behind me I heard children criticizing me and saying "good job", sarcastically of course. Ever since then I was ashamed of my singing voice since I never knew how I really sounded. It's like American Idol when those people who think they can sing never really could sing meanwhile their family members were even cheering them on. I was scared that I was one of those people so I just zipped up the singing part of me and never touched it since.