Going On

        © 1999 Lois Lyman

 

        Loie says "Going On is the true story of a family surviving the first year after their father died suddenly in early summer.  He was a wonderful, warm man, full of humor.  He had a little retirement berry farm and the family was running it together and loving it.  Just before Easter his daughter told me that she had been dreading going home, because spring was her father's favorite time of year.  But when she walked into the kitchen, it was just covered with flats of little pants and her mother and brothers were all busy poring over them.  "I guess it just goes on," she said. 

 

Gordon- nylon 6-string guitar

Lois and Carol - vocals

 

            In summer there was nothing left to do

            But carry on, the way we knew he wanted us to do

            Run the stand and work the farm, sleep exhausted, up at dawn

            No time to think, and so it just went on.

 

                        It still goes on; it will go on

                        In the sharing of a smile, in the caring for a child

                        Asleep in your arms and dreaming – it still goes on.

 

            In autumn, seemed that everything was gone

            We turned and all we saw were shades of black and grey and brown

            Empty fields on every hand, silent house and shuttered stand;

            Wasn't easy then to think of going on.

 

            But winter was time for plans and dreaming

            Catalogs and endless schemes, that kept us all believing

            We would keep the dream alive and make it grow, not just survive

            Knowing that drove out the cold and kept us warm.

 

            And the joy of springtime sun is warm and steady

            In the greenhouse and the fields next summer's crop is coming ready

            Walking through the door at hoe I can feel that it's begun

            And in everyone of us it still goes on.

 

 

Going On is recorded on the album In the Kind Land