You Are My Sunshine

“You are my sunshine; my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey. You’ll never know dear how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away.”

Over 200 people met on a cloudy February afternoon in southern Louisiana in 2011 to celebrate the life of Barbara Claire Bourgeois Schexnaydre, my grandmother. We chose to celebrate instead of morn because for all the years of her life Barbara always chose to be uplifting. She always focused upward and out and she did that through the power of music.

            Although she was never quite classically trained in any instrument or harbored any prodigy-like voice, she always spread the most important part of music; love. From early in her childhood she was addicted to the joy that music and dancing could bring to life. She was one of thirteen children. Growing up in the 1930’s with thirteen siblings wasn’t exactly a cakewalk, but Maw Maw would tell me stories of her childhood that would turn even the most fortunate child green with envy. Her brothers and sisters would gather in the family room around the record player and pair up into “couples”. The most popular dance in the south at the time was the jitterbug. It’s a mix between swing dance and the shag of North Carolina. Now with thirteen kids it’s obviously not even. The odd one out would get the opportunity to dance with the doorknob. Yes, the doorknob of the front door. I asked, “Well, who had to dance with the doorknob?” She replied, “Me! I didn’t care because when I closed my eyes the music was still there and I was never terribly tall so the knob was the perfect partner for me.” It’s amazing that she was so content to “take one for the team” and it didn’t seem to bother her. Her love for the beat and her siblings made her kind enough to choose the option that most deemed undesirable. When she grew a little older she began working in her father’s local grocery store. This is where she met Vernon “Coon” Schexnaydre and the rest is history. 

                

              Barbara and Coon at Holy Rosary Church

(Front Left to Right then Back Right to left)

Angela, Ellen, Lorna, Verna, Iris, Larry, Lamar, Kent, and James

A courtship, a marriage, and 9 children later, the music in her veins was still pulsing stronger than ever. My father, Larry, is the youngest. He vividly remembers putting on living room shows for his mother. The kids would all get together and perform a 10-minute version of the Sound of Music. The crazy thing was they actually had the perfect amount of cast members for the job living under one roof. Maw Maw would sit on the couch in awe and at the end of the performance, no matter how brilliant or horrible, she would give them a standing ovation and shuffle them into the kitchen for her famous chocolate peanut butter oatmeal cookies. 

She was their number one fan. My dad told me that Maw Maw was the reason he decided to start doing theatre in high school. He continued to pursue theatre in college, and then he met my mom in a performing group, married her, had three children, and ultimately started a performing arts academy when no such academy ever existed in south Louisiana. The seed of this idea to spread music to the minds and hearts of children was planted at age 4 while singing, “so long, fair well…” in the living room of a shotgun house, south of Baton Rouge. My dad’s life, as it is, wouldn’t be a reality without the love and encouragement for music that Barbara Claire provided in his childhood.

                                      

 Larry (third from the left, in the back) Linda (on the Floor)

This was the Jamabalaya Singers, a musical group that toured around Louisiana performing at fairs.

 

 Linda and Larry today

Center Stage Performing Arts Academy began in 2000 with 14 students. Today we have over 500 students and some alumni on Broadway and in National tours.

            My time with Maw Maw seems pretty short compared to the time span of her life, but the memories and lessons I learned from her are something I wouldn’t trade for the world. I only wish I had comprehended she was sick sooner so I could’ve held on to everything she said. Barbara was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease a few years after I entered elementary school. I could strain to recall important quotes that she once said and I could also make up some meaningful things to drive my point home, but honestly all that’s coming to me is a video I have of my first birthday. My dad wrote a lullaby, Little Emily, and performed it as I crawled around the red brick floor of Maw Maw Barbara’s house. The camera is focused on my dad for most of the video and sometimes it would scan the floor in the attempt to find me paying attention. Then finally, towards the end of the video, the view is on my dad and in the corner of the frame Maw Maw is standing on the steps watching him sing to his child. Watching it brings me to tears because I know how much that meant to her to see her son share the music he created with his first daughter.

            Home videos show Maw Maw holding me and calling me by name. She would sing You Are My Sunshine to me all the time. It was her favorite song. She would sing it note for note, word for word, without missing a beat. Flash forward ten years and I’m outside swinging with her on the porch on a windy November afternoon. She asks me if I am there to sit with her. At this time in her life she had frequent sitters since her short-term memory was gone and her long-term memory was fading. I decided to play along as to not embarrass her by correcting her mistake. She looked slightly distant for a while and then began to tell me about her wonderful son, Larry. She informed me that he is married to the most wonderful woman, Linda, and they have a studio where little kids come to sing and dance. As she described the story that I knew as my own life, I began to appreciate hearing my story from her perspective. She described three children that Larry and Linda had and ultimately how proud she was of her son. As the “sitter” I felt honored to hear such a story and as a part of the story I felt the need to tell her that I was one of those children. The only problem is that she wouldn’t remember that fact in about 5 minutes after me telling her. Then something amazing happened. She began to sing You Are My Sunshine while staring off into the yard. She sang it note for note, word for word, without missing a beat. As she slipped more and more into the abyss of her own mind throughout the years there was one thing she never let slip and that was music. It’s amazing what the body is capable of doing when the passion for it is so deeply imbedded.

            At her funeral there were many tears and many words shared between loved ones. Quite a few stories made their way around the room of the funeral home. I traveled from group to group to distract myself from the loss. Every single story had a theme. It was all about some time that Barbara entered their life and music followed. Sometimes it was actual music and sometimes it wasn’t so literal. Maybe it was just a sense of harmony that entered their lives after meeting her. I began to think about my life and the impact she’s had on me. I discovered that if it weren’t for her I wouldn’t be doing musical theatre today. My dad would have never met my performing mother and the love of music would’ve never been instilled in me. That was a lot for me to take in. At that moment we were summoned to the funeral grounds to bring her to her final resting place. As we walked I held the hands of loved ones and I started to sing subconsciously. “You are my sunshine; my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey. You’ll never know dear how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away.” I only got through a few words when a group of my cousins joined in with the tune. Within seconds the entire congregation of about 200 people were singing the song as a tribute to the life of Barbara Claire Bourgeois Schexnaydre. She touched me with the love and passion for music and I am confident that with 200 strong voices, we touched her back in heaven.

“Please don’t take my sunshine away…”