Anna Sunflower & Anna's Reply

This morning my daughter, Clara, was singing a song that she made up. She's four, so her song is simple, and she has the ability to stay mostly on key when she sings. I think she has a real talent for it.

My wife's family is very musically talented. We both sing, Stephanie Grace plays piano, Anna plays flute and sings beautifully, Matt plays trombone and had a very deep bass voice, Stephanie's brothers and sisters all sing, play instruments, and a couple play a lot... like A LOT... of instruments. David and Jason are always purchasing a new interesting instrument to learn.

Stephanie Grace has this amazing skill to sit at a piano and just play something incredible. She calls it a party trick and shrugs it off like it's nothing, but I find it absolutely fascinating, having to work so hard to create any music myself.

Back in 2014, when Anna was 10, Stephanie Grace wrote and recorded a song for her titled Anna Sunflower. I've downloaded it from fb and post it here:

It's sweet and cute, and Anna is the one filming. Unfortunately it cuts off at the end, so we miss the last few do-do-da-ta-dee-da's, but you get the picture.

A couple years ago, Anna was working on her own songs, and her first one (no music yet) is a response to her mother.

Soul Existence · Anna - Sunflower

I love the messaging in this set of songs. In Stephanie Grace's song, Anna is young, she's innocent, she's a delight. She has very little experience in the world. 

In Anna's response, she's a teenager, she's kind of a brat, she's made some mistakes and suffered bouts of depression, not the childlike innocence from when she was 10. The world and it's problems are a little more real.

She recognizes the vision her mother had for her and still wants for her, and tries to change her path to match it, longing for the days of easy happiness in childhood.

These songs, wonderful on their own, take on a clearer meaning when heard back to back.

Anna sang this for me one morning while I was driving her to Seminary. 

Still brings a tear to my eye.