"Such a feelin's comin' over me
There is wonder in 'most ev'ry thing I see
Not a cloud in the sky, got the sun in my eyes
And I won't be surprised if it's a dream

Everything I want the world to be
Is now comin' true especially for me
And the reason is clear, it's because you are here
You're the nearest thing to heaven that I've seen

I'm on the top of the world lookin' down on creation
And the only explanation I can find
Is the love that I've found ever since you've been around
Your love's put me at the top of the world"

The other day I saw a commercial by Aquafina that used this song. It struck a pretty big chord within my heart.

I have very few memories of my childhood, but something that always brings me back is the Carpenters. My parents were really big Carpenters fans, and when I hear their songs, especially this one, I have visions of standing on the couch in our old apartment in Logan Square. My dad would be playing the Carpenters record and both him and my mom would be singing. And I would just hang out on the couch, about 3 years old, happy and content.

Whenever I hear Karen Carpenter's voice I think of my mom. Of course, their voices are nothing alike, but I can just hear her singing along with the music. The world back then was a wonderful, magical place, where my whole world was that little apartment and my parents were my heroes, and there was no such word as 'death' or 'cancer' in my vocabulary.

Something that's been weighing on my mind a lot lately is that the one year anniversary of my mom's death is coming soon. It's hard to believe it's been a whole year. In some ways it seems like so long ago, some ways it seems like just yesterday. My three hour drive yesterday gave me a lot of time to think, and I relived a lot of the last year in my mind. I truly understand what the meaning of a 'heavy heart' is. I think of my mom, how she's not in my life anymore, what she went through, those last days, and my heart is heavy, it's hard for me to breath, I fall into the vast depths of sadness.

So when I hear that song, I think of her, sitting on top of the world, looking down on all of us, glowing in the light of heaven's love, remembering a time when she watched her little girl jump on the couch as she sang the song on a sunny Sunday morning.

"'I don't know why something that made me so happy then feels so sad now. Maybe that is the way it is with the best memories." - The Kitchen God's Wife - Amy Tan

Posted by Yano at October 19, 2004 07:35 PM

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