Chicken Soup for the Soul of America Read Free Page A

Sonali picked up some dirt in her hands, folded her hands in prayer and began singing a beautiful hymn she learned in India the previous winter. Everyone stopped to listen to her. Then she held the dirt to her heart and threw it toward the plane.
    As the sun peeked momentarily through the thick cloud cover, Sonali looked up and said, “There’s Daddy!” She drew a heart in the gravel and asked for some flowers, which she arranged beautifully around the heart with one flower in the center for her daddy.
    News of Sonali’s courageous, sweet voice reached California, and we received a call from the governor’s office. Would Sonali like to sing at California’s Day of Remembrance?
    â€œNo, I don’t think so. She just turned five a few weeks ago, and there will be too many people.”
    Sonali heard me and asked, “What am I too young to do?”
    She listened to my reasons why not and simply said, “I want to do it.” I agreed. And in the next few days, Sonali’s repertoire of mostly Disney tunes expanded to include a beautiful prayer from the Rig Veda that we heard at the Siddha Yoga Meditation Ashram in New York where we were staying. Clearly, “Let Us Be United” was the perfect song for Sonali to sing:
    Let us be united;
Let us speak in harmony;
Let our minds apprehend alike;
Common be our prayer;
Common be our resolution;
Alike be our feeling;
Unified be our hearts;
Perfect be our unity.
    On the flight back to California, our flight attendant heard about where we were going and asked if Sonali wanted to sing her song for everyone on the plane.
    A bit concerned, my mother asked Sonali, “Do you know how many people are on this plane?”
    Sonali had no idea. So she took the flight attendant’s hand, walked up and down the aisle, and then came back with her guess. “About a thousand,” she said. “I can do that. I’ll be fine.”
    In a clear, strong voice, Sonali sang to her fellow passengers. She then walked up and down the aisle with one of the crewmembers, receiving the smiles, thanks and love of all the United passengers. At the end of the flight, who stood on top of a box at the door with the flight attendant, thanking everyone and saying good-bye? Our Sonali!
    When Sonali sang on the steps of the state capitol, her voice was unbelievably strong. It was as though she wanted to fill the whole universe with this impassioned prayer so it would reach her daddy. As she sang, I felt it also become a pure prayer to everyone gathered—a prayer that painted a vision. I was delighted when she asked me if she could sing again, this time for Alan’s memorial service at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.
    That wasn’t Sonali’s last singing prayer. When the Golden State Warriors awarded a check to the Beaven family at a fundraiser in their honor, guess who sang to thousands of people in their stadium? When asked how she was able to sing in front of so many people, Sonali said, “I wasn’t afraid because Daddy was singing with me.”
    October 15th would have been Alan’s forty-ninth birthday, and Sonali wanted to have a birthday party for him. “Daddy’s favorite place is the ocean, so let’s go to the beach and have a big fire. Everybody can write a prayer on a piece of wood and when we put the wood in the fire, the prayers will rise to Daddy in heaven.”
    And so we did. As sweetly as Sonali’s voice reached the heavens and so many hearts, so, too, our love rose into the moonlit sky. Alan’s courage and spirituality are so strongly reflected in Sonali’s ability to rise above her own heartbreak and loss and uplift people. Just as Alan didn’t sit back in his seat with shaking knees but rose fearlessly to help save thousands of people’s lives, so, too, Sonali chose not to bury herself in grief, but to sing her dad’s vision of love and courage. I am grateful for them both!
    Kimi