Many years ago, I taught a program I had entitled, “Sing and Sign” for elementary school students.  I was taking sign language at a community college and my children were in elementary school.  We had moved to California for my husband’s work and I was fortunate to be able to volunteer in their classrooms. 

The classes at community colleges were free and one of them offered a sign language course.  Since I had been interested in learning to sign, I jumped at the chance to learn.  My teacher was a great guy and it was really a fun class.  He also loved to sign songs and would share this with us on occasion.  I loved it.  

I love to write songs and decided that I would write songs for children that could be easily signed.  He was so encouraging and as time went on we became good friends and our families would get together.  But I digress, as I often do.

I started out with one short song about being friends.  In time, I had written about 20 songs for kids to learn sign language, and they became the basis of a program called “Sing and Sign.”  I taught and performed this program in a number of elementary schools as a part time job.

One of the songs I wrote and performed was entitled, “You Gotta Be Your Best Friend.”  Now, it has been many years since I taught that program.  But I remember all of the songs.  I think it’s because there are signs attached to the words along with the melody.  These three things: words, melody and sign, seem to form a memory chain, as I have had students who are now in their 40’s who still remember the alphabet song and the signs.  That is my theory, anyway. 

Lately, I have had major memory issues and this is depressing to me.  However, when talking to my sister-in-law, I was beating myself up a lot, and she let me know I was doing it and told me I had to stop.  I totally agreed with her, but found I wasn’t aware of doing it much of the time.  

I have been trying not to go down that path and “You Gotta Be Your Best Friend” popped into my head the other day.  So I started singing it at home.  This exercise has helped me because when I am starting to think negatively, I just start to sing and sign this song.  It has surprised me more than I could imagine.  It has become a coping mechanism for me.  Isn’t that amazing?  I am so surprised and grateful. Sometimes, we have just the right tool inside of us that can help us through a difficult time.  Isn’t that amazing?

In closing, the words to the chorus and the first verse of the song are written below.

You Gotta Be Your Best Friend

Don’t do something for yourself that isn’t good for you,

That isn’t good for you.

Do do something for yourself that you would like to do,

That’s really good for you.

Cause, you gotta be your best friend,

No one can be your best friend,

Like you can be best friends with you

  Ⓒ 1989 Lora Marie Wade