One of the characteristics of Williams syndrome is that they tend to be gifted in music.
Michelle is a big country music fan. Currently, her favorite country singer is Cole Swindell. Her lifelong dream is to go to Nashville and “get a record deal.” Never mind that she can’t sing. She thinks she sings just fine.
She loves to write her own “songs.” It’s not really a song without the melody to go with it, and she doesn’t know how to write the music. But she’s been writing off and on for at least 20 years, and she talks all the time about writing a number one hit.
I wish I had a collection of all the songs she’s ever written. Unfortunately, Michelle doesn’t think about keeping them. She’ll write them on a Word document, then forget to save it. Or she’ll think she saved it, but doesn’t know where it went. Sometimes, she’d get mad and delete them without ever saving them. I’ll say, “No, no, Michelle, don’t do that.” But it’s too late. All her hard work is gone.
However, I didn’t realize how gifted she was until a few months ago. Floyd and I took her to Nashville, Tennessee in September, 2021. We stayed in a resort. One evening, Michelle wanted to go down to the hot tub, so we changed into swimwear and I took her down. Because we were getting into water, I only took the essentials with me. I didn’t take my cell phone.
At the hot tub, she made a whole lot of new friends, and she told them she wanted to be a country singer and write her own songs. She said, “I’m going to write a song called I don’t know what I’m saying.” Of course, someone asked her to sing it to them. Now, Michelle hadn’t written the song yet. She was only playing around with the idea of the title.
Thrilled that everyone wanted to hear her song, she started singing, making up the words and the melody as she sang.
I thought, “What a time for me to leave my cell phone in our room.” All her words made sense. They rhymed in all the right places. It had a great message. She had a wonderful melody. It had a marvelous ending. It aligned perfectly with the title. And I knew she’d never be able to repeat this evening’s performance. I also discovered that she sang very well when she knew the words and melody. And that evening, they both flowed from her heart.
After we returned home, I shared that story with someone who said, “Oh, my. That’s an incredibly rare talent. You need to get Michelle into music therapy.”
We found a music program designed for special needs adults, called the Ken Anderson Alliance. And on Mondays, they have a song-writing class. Needless to say, there was a waiting list. But Michelle finally got into the program, and they will help her put her songs to music.
Then recently, we buried a dear friend from church, and after 47 years of marriage, her husband is simply lost without her. So Michelle went to her day program and wrote a song for him.