"A Child's Prayer"

“A Child’s Prayer” is the name of a song that Primary age children (3 - 11) sing in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I sang it when I was that age. In the decades since then, it has gained greater significance for me. Without making any conscious decision to do so, this song has become the default soundtrack for suffering, and plays on repeat in my head when I worry. The special, sacred meaning it has for me I now share with my daughter and granddaughter. I’ll tell you why…

My daughter became pregnant at 16 years old, and her pregnancy was extremely difficult. Prior to her pregnancy, she weighed as much as 120 lbs, was a good eater, and was overall pretty healthy. But one day she became so violently sick that she had to be taken to the hospital, where we learned the cause of her sickness. Not only was she pregnant, but she had hyperemesis, which was morning sickness of the most severe kind.

Soon, she was under 90 lbs, and was dry-heaving day and night until she’d begun vomiting blood because the dry-heaving had torn the lining of her stomach. I honestly didn’t know how she or her baby could possibly survive.

Being a teenager, who was also pregnant, doctors were extremely wary of giving her nausea meds strong enough to help. As she got increasingly worse, they became willing to compromise and try anything that might enable her to eat and drink and keep it down. Everything was tried; none of it worked.

As a single dad, and she my only child, my entire life’s purpose was to help her and to be what she needed, but it felt like I was just watching her die. I have never felt so helpless as I did during those months. And I knew, if I felt that helpless, she must have felt exponentially so .

I spent day and night praying for her, and though my presence did nothing to stop her from being so sick, I needed to be there- for both of us. I helped clean up and get things for her, but often I just sat with her. And as I sat with her while she was throwing up, or heaving, I would rub her back and sing ‘A Child’s Prayer’ to comfort her. I did it all throughout her pregnancy.

Those were some long months. Did I mention I walked my baby girl down the aisle during this time? Well, as the time drew near for my granddaughter’s first birthday, her parents got married, and mine was the difficult task of walking my daughter down the aisle and, it truly seemed, out of my life.

After many more health scares, including: E.coli, sepsis, hypothermia, and more, without any big announcements, she delivered a beautiful baby girl. I could hardly believe it; both mother and daughter were healthy, after everything.

My granddaughter is one and a half years old now, and since she was an infant, when she gets really upset about something, I start singing ‘A Child’s Prayer’ - the song she heard me sing all those months while in her mother’s womb - and she gets quiet, as though she’s been taken back to a time and a place she misses. Like her child’s prayer has been answered.

My daughter and I have had a rocky relationship over the years. For most of her childhood I simply wasn’t “there.” Often I was physically absent, but more often, mentally. I was able to straighten up shortly after she’d entered her teenage years, and for 3 years I had full-custody of her. Lots of highs and lots of lows. The highs were very high, and the lows were very low.

Her difficult pregnancy was how the 3 years ended, and I think, though it’s hard to tell at times, it strengthened our bond, and when few things seem common between us, we have those hardships and that song. An answer to this father - and grandfather’s - prayer...

Below, I've included links to the original Primary children's version, and a more recent, adult version. Both share the same lyrics.