The Feel of Losing a Loved One
Music and poetry have the power to resonate our emotions
and feelings. Every poetry can be a good song but every song cannot be a
poetry. Song is based on the group of rhythmic voices, while the poetry is
based on the meaningful letters and words. The song “My Little Girl” by Tim
McGraw captures the emotions people often feels for losing their loved ones.
The poems “To a Daughter Leaving Home” by Linda Pastan and “For a Daughter Who
Leaves” by Janice Mirikitani can be connected to the song as all three develop
the same theme.
The poem “To a Daughter Leaving Home” by Linda Pastan is a
very emotional poem about the mother's love. This poem’s deeper story is about
the life of the daughter and how quickly the daughter’s life went by until she
say goodbye to her mother. In this poem, feeling of mother is explained in a
very beautiful way. The lines:
When I taught you
at eight to ride
a bicycle, loping along
beside you
as you wobbled away
on two round wheels,
my own mouth rounding in surprise (Pastan 1-7) explain, how the mother recalls the moment as she ran
side her daughter, teaching her to ride a bike. It also shows how she raised
her daughter, sticking by her through all the wobbles of life and also how
excited she becomes when the girl begins to ride on her own. Finally, she goes
on without her mother. The daughter goes with the hair flapping which to the
parent is a handkerchief waving goodbye. The mood it creates is very emotional.
It is very sad that the parent had to say goodbye when they had not managed to
be in touch with the daughter. The tone in this poem is reflective and
melancholy as the mother remembers the pivotal moment of her daughter’s
childhood. The words "wobbled," "crashed" and
"breakable," symbolize the mothers fear for daughter’s departure and
trying to protect her from falling down. This poem shows mother’s anxiety about
her daughter’s safety, her amazement at the girl's success and get realization
of her independence. Likewise the poet of “For a Daughter Who Leaves” expresses
the same emotions for what a mother feels for losing her daughter. The tone
although not exactly identical but it is somewhat similar to that of “To a Daughter
Leaving Home.”
The poem “For a Daughter Who Leaves” by Janice Mirikitani
is about a mother who is preparing for her daughter's wedding. This poem shows the
mother’s continuous love towards her daughter and the realization of letting
her daughter go and start her own life. The line:
The mother weeps alone
into her jeweled sewing box
slips red thread
around its spool,
the same she used to stitch
her daughter's first silk jacket (Mirikitani 5-10), shows the endless love the mother has had for
her daughter from the beginning. The wedding slippers represent how the mother
is preparing her daughter to go and walk in to her new life. The line,
"The woman spins her thread from the spool of her heart" (Mirikitani, 26-28), shows that the mother is
letting her go and passing on the love to her daughter. The thread stands as a
symbol of love, which keeps mother and the daughter connected no matter where
she goes. This poem shows the mother's bond with her daughter and her sense
that the two will stay connected, even though her daughter is departing. The
tones used in this poem are anxiety, sadness and caring. The mother is anxious
for her daughter, as any caring parent would be, when their children are
leaving home and going far.
The song “My Little Girl” by Tim McGraw is about a man who
has watched his daughter grow up from toddler to teenager. He doesn't want to
let her go, but he knows she will go someday so he reminds her of all the sweet
things they used to do when she was a little girl. Things like "I love
you" and some certain things that make a father and daughter close is being
used by the singer in this song. He also tells her to "take on this whole
world" and also to remember the road that will lead her home again. The
line, "Someday, some boy will come and ask me for your hand. But I won't
say yes to him unless I know he's the half that makes you whole” (McGraw, 29-32 ), because he wants her other
half to be best for her. He wants her to love her life and do all she wants and
at the same time to remember where her roots lie and to know that she is always
welcome back home. The theme of this song is love. The singer dedicated this
song to his daughter to show her how much he loves her. Caring and emotional
are the tone seen in this song. This song gets me excited about being a father
one day and really loving my kids.
Music
and poetry are so closely related that they can often correlate to one another.
Both music and poetry tells the feelings or
situations that are meaningful to the singer or author which speaks to every
level of emotion. The song “My Little Girl” and the poems “To a Daughter
Leaving Home” and “For a Daughter Who Leaves” express the common theme of
feeling broken for losing their loved ones. All three works shows the parents
love, caring and fear for their daughter’s future.
Works Cited
Pastan, Linda. ""To a Daughter Leaving
Home"." Booth, Norton. Introduction to Literature. W.W.Norton
& Company, 2006. 515.
Janice Mirikitani. poets.org. 2002. 1 May 2014.
McGraw, Tim. ""My Little Girl"." By Tim
McGraw and Tom Douglas. 2006.
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