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Wednesday, February 06, 2002

By Bob Batz Jr., Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Lynn Mrozek gave birth to sons six years apart, yet found herself planning their weddings just six weeks apart. So maybe she was a bit -- well, emotional.

	A Song for My Son Words and music by Mikki Viereck, Steve Moser and Bob Casinghino I don't know where The time has gone Since those little boy days Doesn't seem that long Yet here you are It's your wedding day And there's one thing, darling I'd like to say... (chorus) Be kind, be sweet Be a gentle man Care and share And always be fair And remember though you now Have taken a wife You will always be my son My loving son You filled my life With so much joy As I watched you grow From that little boy Now I'll try not to cry As you walk away And just once more darling I'd like to say... (chorus) Be kind, be sweet Be a gentle man Care and share And always be fair And remember though you now Have taken a wife You will always be my son My loving son

But at another wedding that fall of 1997, the New Castle mother heard a song that moved her -- to cry, to modify her reception plans, even to take dance lessons.

The song was "A Song for My Son," played while the groom danced with his mother.

Mrozek was quite familiar with the traditional bridal dance for daddies and their "little girls." But she'd never heard or seen anything for mothers.

She loved the idea and wanted to add it to her sons' weddings.

So, as the big days approached, she searched for that song. It was a long time before she found a recording. It was even longer before she could listen to it without tears.

"I don't know where

"The time has gone

"Since those little boy days ..."

Meanwhile, she and her husband, John, signed up for dance lessons. So had their older son, Steven, and his fiancee.

Son Robert, who was getting married first, agreed to humor his mom and take a few private lessons, too.

They practiced at home -- a mother and son, waltzing around the basement.

And on June 27, 1998, while "A Song for My Son" played, Robert beautifully twirled his mother, who, of course, couldn't help but cry.

That Aug. 8, she whirled and cried with Steven, also to that song.

Years later, she looks back and says, "Probably those two dances with my sons were the proudest moments of my life."

She's since thanked Mikki Viereck for that.

Viereck, of East Longmeadow, Mass., was the housewife/wedding singer who sat down at her kitchen table and wrote the sentimental song in 1991. The reaction at the wedding where she first sang it told her she might have something. The reaction since -- roughly 200,000 versions of it sold, media coverage including the "Today Show," and strongly positive and personal responses from moms including Mrozek -- confirms it.

"It was almost a grass-roots thing," Viereck says when reached via the 800 number to the business the song spawned. Her New Traditions Music produces other wedding albums and singles (including "A Song for My Daughter") that it sells from its Web site (www.new-wedding-traditions.com) and by phone (800-447-6647).

Much of the music aims to fills specific needs, like the relatively new "A Father's Song," which expresses a groom's feelings for his dad. "A Wedding Thank You" is more versatile, in that it's available with male or female vocals. Most of the songs also are available as instrumentals and in sheet music for folks who want to sing and/or play them themselves. You can even buy suitable-for-framing lyrics.

Still, "A Song for My Son" remains the franchise's big hit.

Mrozek, now 53, remembers how neat it seemed to her for mothers to get their due -- "I thought, 'Geez, we gave birth to them!' " -- and how beautiful the song felt.

"I just felt so close to my sons and I really wanted something that was just for us. ... One last thing. "

The $9 CD or cassette single includes two versions -- traditional (sung by Viereck herself) and country.

Cynthia Crowley, 45, of Churchill is gaga about both, and actually listens to them frequently in her car.

She, too, first heard "A Song for My Son" at a wedding years ago.

Her son, Karl Probola, still was a teen-ager and nowhere near engaged, but that didn't matter. "The words say everything that a mother who has a very good relationship with her son probably wants to say," Crowley explains, after a few good words about how proud she is of her police officer son. "Sometimes I can't think of it without getting a little teary."

She's picked the twangier version for her much anticipated dance with Karl this Sept. 14, and she knows it won't be easy letting go.

After she gives him the CD in the personalized cover, "I might have to get another one."