Cockles and Mussels

(alive, alive oh)

Yesterday I went outside. It had been 6 days since I had left the house. It’s not a good time to have anxiety and a sore throat… so I stayed in. For six days. The last time I spent this much time indoors was when my second son was born in the middle of a Chicago winter and polar vortex. Isolation and stale air does things to the sanest among us, and I don’t claim to be in that category.

By Tuesday my throat felt better, and the school had supplies to be picked up for “home schooling,” which I put in quotes because let’s be honest, no one is learning much in this chaos. I told my husband I would be picking it up, relishing the opportunity for fresh air and the first sunshine we’d seen in days.

The school is right across the street, but it still felt great to walk the short distance. As I approached the front entrance I couldn’t help but remember sitting outside the same doors four years ago, the morning after Trump was elected president. I had arrived early, as I normally did, to soak up the outdoors and quiet before the cacophony of children surged from the building.

One other gentleman was there waiting for his grandson. I knew his grandson from a birthday party; he was an eccentric little a red-headed boy who, at 6, was already experiencing what it meant to be “different” from his peers. Hi grandfather sat with his elbows on his knees and his hands gently clasped near his face. As I sat down near him we exchanged a glance and a sympathetic smile that spoke volumes.

I remember that day feeling a tremendous sense of loss, coupled with immense fear of what the future might look like. Little did that grandfather know, he was the first adult I had come into contact with since those feelings began. I’m grateful I was able to share a meaningful moment of understanding with him.

Now, four years later, I found myself walking to the same building. Within the empty walls the bells were still ringing, keeping time for no one. I felt the same sense of fear and helplessness, the same longing for connection. A few other parents were walking in and out of the school, all with worried expressions of uncertainty. That’s when I heard a familiar tune. I turned and saw an older woman pushing a toy car with a toddler at the wheel. She was walking slowly and singing softly as she strolled. The song was “Cockles and Mussels,” an Irish folksong about Molly Malone, a fishmonger who died young of fever.

In Dublin’s fair city
where the girls are so pretty
I once met a girl named sweet Molly Malone
and she wheeled her wheel barrow
through the streets broad and narrow
singing cockles and mussels alive alive oh

She was a fish monger 
and sure was no wonder
so were her mother and father before
and they wheeled their wheel barrow
through the streets broad and narrow
singing cockles and mussels alive alive oh

She died of a fever
and no one could save her
and that was the end of sweet Molly Malone
now her ghost wheels her barrow through the streets broad and narrow
singing cockles and mussels alive alive oh

I used to play this song on the piano when I was little, having no idea what it was really about. Seeing this grandmother share the song with the young child was both endearing and heartbreaking. Molly Malone had nothing but her wheelbarrow and its goods. This grandmother was pushing not a wheelbarrow but a push-car, her cargo equally as precious. She must be worried about the future for both herself and her grandchild, yet she continued to push, and as she pushed she sang.