The Girl in the Pink Dress

Because I am the father of a son who participates in high school music, I get the "opportunity" to hear many concerts. Now I'm not complaining too much for I have been able to hear wonderful chorales, moving spirituals, opera, foreign language pieces and a host of other beautiful music. I've also been able to hear these concerts in a number of fabulous venues. Last night, I was privileged to attend the area-wide concert of all the schools in the district. This was a chance for the 6th graders to hear the other groups in the middle school and high school and theoretically desire, yea long for the opportunity to sing with them once they reached the age of singability.
The 6th graders were given the opportunity to sing several songs last night. I noticed that the style du jour for the boys right now is horizontally striped polo shirts. It's still pretty eclectic for the girls. The noise level was deafening. I also observed that the kids sing will little or no emotion. They just stare at the conductor (if the conductor is lucky, otherwise their eyes are darting all over the auditorium) and sing their song. When they sang "The Wells Fargo Wagon" the noise level picked up with the pace of the song, but the emotion level basically stayed the same.
There was one little girl who caught my eye. She had a pretty, sparkled pink dress, she was sporting a blue headband, she wore glasses. She moved with the music, but she was always several beats behind. When they clapped, she just couldn't quite get in synch with the rest of the kids. She rarely sang the words at the right time. It looked as if she hit about one word out of every three. She craned her body awkwardly as she sang and looked around at her classmates often. But this she did, she sang with feeling. This little Down's Syndrome girl had something that nobody else did...emotion. Tears filled my eyes as I wondered about her. Did she get teased at school? What kind of home life did she have? Was it a happy one? Did she bring joy to the people in her life?
As I looked at all the good looking kids last night, I realized that they didn't have anything on this little girl. After the concert, someone was taking her picture. She posed just like a model. I guess she felt like the most beautiful girl in the place. And you know what? In my eyes, she was. Have a great day. JW