Songs of ‘Home’: Ending/Beginning

Time to embarrass my children now. LOOK AT THOSE PHOTOS. They were (and still are) too cute.

I’ve participated in the I Heart Songwriting Club, run by the wonderful Francesca De Valance, on and off for years. This piece was one that I sketched out roughly as a weekly challenge way back in 2016, the year that my oldest baby, Charlie (now in his last year of uni), was finishing primary school. Any mother knows that this is a time when you feel all the feels (even though it seems a bit silly now to get overly emotional about him finishing Year 6) and writing this was cathartic at the time. 

That year I also had a really beautiful group of Year 12s - the first that I’d seen through Senior Music at my old school. I grew close to them and was dreading when I had to say goodbye to them at their graduation (I tell myself every year that I’m not going to get emotional, but I do every time). I wrote this one just before their last school performance, and played it for them (through tears because I am a sook), with my boys in the audience.

I didn’t do anything more than that with the piece until it came time to find songs for the album. I was happy with the sentiment of the song and the music, but I can never express myself as eloquently as my friend David Megarrity can. He’s always known what to say and how to say it, even if the subject is difficult. (One of my favourite lyrics of his is from a song he wrote for The Goodbye Notes in the early 2000s - “I’m making a home for you to leave/I’m holding you close now so later I can grieve…” . If that doesn’t capture parenthood in two sentences, I don’t know what does.) I sent the lyrics of Ending/Beginning to him at the end of 2023 and, in true David fashion, he sent back a perfectly crafted story of a parent experiencing the bittersweet years of watching their child grow, and letting them go. I’m so grateful for how he wove my story around and through his clever words. 

I started planning the album in late 2023, just as my youngest son, Toby, was finishing high school, which gave it a new meaning for me. Last year ended and this year started with enormous changes for us, including us preparing the house that we’ve lived in for most of the kids’ childhoods for sale. I’ve never been very good with change, and I have so many regrets about not being around enough when the kids were little, so letting go of that time hurts right in my chest and stomach. I’m really grateful for being able to process all of these feelings through music - I can’t imagine how I’d ever do that without it.

I’m forever grateful to the wonderful Kristin Berardi for lending her voice and heart to this piece. I always heard her voice in my head when I imagined what the piece would sound like, and to hear the real thing is more than I could have hoped for. I’m also very happy to have a former student from that Year 12 class, and incredible vocalist, Rahel Phillips, performing it at the album launch, which feels like taking it full circle.

This song is, of course, dedicated to my sons, Charlie and Toby, with every ounce of my love, and excitement to see what they do at the beginning of their new big journeys. xx