Sleep Well

I know I've shared before about how special the Jewel "Lullaby" CD is to me. My mom gave it to me when I was carrying Lily. I was filled with excitement when I thought of playing it for her once she was born, dreaming of rocking her while nursing and listening to these tunes that would cause her to drift off to sleep.

One of the most precious memories from when Lily was here was when I was driving over to a friend's house for a visit one day and had the CD turned up loud for my 30-minute drive. Lily moved so happily and wildly in my belly to this music! She loved it. Babies enjoy music in the womb and oftentimes remember it after they are born. I bet Lily would still love it to this day.

I love listening to the CD now, knowing Lily heard it with her own two perfect little ears.

My favorite song on the album, what I call mine and Lily's song, is "Forever and a Day." That song is 3 minutes and 16 seconds (3:16, like Lily's birthday). I've written about that song before. I even considered getting "Forever and a Day" on Lily's stone. I did get the phrase inscribed on a locket for her.

Anyways, another favorite of mine from the album is called "Sov Gott." It's a Swedish lullaby that Jewel wrote in the early 90s. According to her website: "The song was originally conceived during a road trip from San Francisco to Colorado when Jewel was 17. To help pass the time constructively, she decided to have her traveling companion teach her some rudimentary Swedish, starting with the alphabet and random words and phrases that interested her. When she learned several words and phrases (kiss, dolphin, wolf, sleep well and I love you for all time), she began writing a new song utilizing what she learned as the lyrics. The result was "Sov Gott," a simple fable where a dolphin has the misfortune to fall in love with a wolf."

Jewel said this about it: "The ill-fated love can never be realized by the animals from two different worlds, so each night they decide to meet at sunset, and wish each other good night and sleep well, and they kiss (OK, touch noses) at the shoreline, declaring eternal love. After they meet at sunset and touch, they also proclaim that tomorrow, "morning wakens when we kiss."

Here are the Swedish lyrics translated to English:

Sleep well, beautiful dolphin
Sweet dreams, my white wolf
We have love for each other
For each other
Forever

Sleep well, beautiful dolphin
Sweet dreams, my white wolf
We have love for each other
For each other
Forever

Sweet dreams
Sweet dreams, my white wolf
The morning wake up
Then we kiss
We kiss, kiss us,
Sweet dreams
Sleep well, forever

Sleep well, beautiful dolphin
Sweet dreams, my white wolf
We have love for each other
For each other, forever

Sweet dreams
Sweet dreams, my white wolf
The morning wake up
When we kiss,
When we kiss, forever,
When we kiss, forever
Sweet dreams
Sweet dreams
Sweet dreams

It is amazing that such simple lyrics written out of her elementary knowledge of Swedish can produce such a breathtakingly beautiful lullaby. This song, oh this song makes me ache for my Lily girl.

When I looked up the lyrics, I was struck that in a roundabout way, it describes our mother-daughter relationship. The dolphin and wolf were from two different worlds and could not be together. Lily and I are essentially in two different worlds right now, me in the temporal world, and she in the Heavenly and eternal one. We cannot be together right now either, though I long for us to be. For now, I too must declare my eternal love and tell her to "sleep well," only not forever as the song says, but rather the rest of my Earthly days. She is only asleep to this world, but always alive in Jesus. Now dolphins remind me of my girl.

Here is the song (email subscribers click here to listen).

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