My Grandma’s Lullaby
"Is she asleep yet?" a deep voice spoke softly from the doorway of the kitchen.
"Aye, I think so," whispered the woman sitting in the rocking chair. The logs on the fire popped and crackled, spreading their warmth on her legs.
"Sing to me again, Gran," the wee lass with long brown hair yawned, surprising her grandmother. Gran looked up at Granddad and a smile broke across her wrinkled face.
He shrugged his broad shoulders and walked over to the lass, Maggie. He took his large, rough hands and tenderly held her chin. "Noo listen to me, ma wee brown-eyed pet, its aboot time for ye to be getting off to sleep, isn’t it?"
Maggie’s dimples sunk deep into her round cheeks as a smile of love spread across her face. "Please, Granddad, let Gran sing me just one more verse," her big round eyes pleaded, "and then I promise I’ll go to sleep."
"Och, one mare verse and then its tae bed with ye, lassie," Granddad said. He bent down and kissed her on the forehead, stroked her hair and then winked at Gran as he left the room.
"I love you, Granddad," Maggie shouted, hoping he would hear.
From the other room came his strong Scottish brogue, "I love ye too, Darlin."
Maggie felt her heart swell inside. She gazed into her Gran’s eyes, which were as brown as the hair of a newborn calf, just like her own. "One more time, Gran," she pleaded. "Please, Gran, sing me the song that your Mummy sang to you where you were a wee baby in Shetland."
"Shhh, bairn," Gran said. She snuggled Maggie tighter in the hand-knitted wool blanket that was wrapped around her. Squeezing her affectionately, she began to sing the song that had been sung for generations, from mother to child, or in her case, from grandmother to grandchild – ‘Da Fetlar Lullaby’. "One verse, lass. Close your eyes and listen.
‘Husha-baa Mam’s peerie flooer;
Sleep o sleep come ta dee shon….’"
By the time Gran had finished the last words, Maggie’s eyes were shut and she was still. She wasn’t really asleep, but let Gran think she was. How secure she felt being held by her grandmother and having her
granddad nearby telling her that he loved her. The last thing she remembered that night was him laying her on the big bed in the spare room, with the words to her gran’s lullaby going through her head.
That was forty-two years ago and that six year old, brown-haired girl was me. How different my life is now. Not many days after that special night at my grandparent’s home, my family immigrated to Australia. I didn’t realize as I watched my gran standing on the dock, waving goodbye, that it would be the last time I would ever see her alive. I would never hear ‘Da Fetlar Lullaby’ again. I would never feel the soft wool blanket that she’d spun and knitted, caressing my face again.
Time went by and soon I found myself a mother. My grandparents had passed away long before then and unknown to me, my Gran had sent the wool blanket to my mum, telling her to pass it on to me when I had a wee lass of my own. After the birth of my first daughter, my Mum handed me the blanket.
That night, with tears falling from my cheeks, I wrapped my own wee one in the same blanket that I had been wrapped in, sat in my rocking chair in front of a fire and cuddled her tightly. I could barely sing the
words through the tears as I heard my Gran singing with me,
"Husha baa Mam’s peerie flooer;
Sleep o sleep come ta dee shon……"
© 2002 by Margo Fallis