My father used to play the piano every night. He would cycle through his favorite pieces or parts of pieces, heavy on the boogie woogie. He would unwind and relax playing, a familiar reassuring sound throughout my childhood. My parents always had a piano and, sometime in the mid 60s, my grandparent's sent their Mason & Hamlin baby grand. My grandmother had somehow bought it new during the depression. Apparently they didn't have it so bad.
Ever since then, whenever my parents moved, the first consideration was "where does the piano go". Once, during my father's extended illnesses, my mother and I tried to figure out what would constitute healing for my father. What was the goal? What could you expect? We decided that my father would be doing well if
a. he could drive the car
b. he could use the computer
c. he could play the piano.
In his later years, he stopped playing. For awhile, the piano bench was replaced with a desk chair, easier to sit in. Everybody would be reassured if he would feel well enough to play. But, usually he would not play, very withdrawn. He felt discouraged because his fingers would not work as they used to or he didn't have the stamina.
My mother tells a story very early in their marriage when the local girl scouts were desperate for a camp director. They begged my mother, couldn't she fill in? I just got married, she pointed out, how could I? Bring him along, they said. So for part of the summer my parents lived in an apt at the camp and my father commuted to work. My mother said he used to play the camp piano every evening.
Late in his life, I would try to get him to tell stories, but he would not. This picture, in Rockford, December 2006. He sat down at the piano for a few minutes and played just a little before giving up. If I remember correctly, he was most annoyed that I took this picture. He passed away April 2007.
2 comments:
My sister Pam writes--
Three or four years ago, Teresa was just learning an instrument and had not translated the musical notes to piano. She sat down and started asking me questions.
"One key left of the cracked key is Middle C"
I told her because that is how I learned on the Baby Grand years earlier.
So I told her about the scales and how the notes repeat. I got called away and she continued to quietly but determined to work on a scale. Father wandered in and sat down and showed her how to do "the correct fingering" for playing a scale on the piano. She was so thrilled to have him pay attention to her and show her something she had an interest in. After all she had always been told . . . .that was Grandpa's Baby Grand Piano!
Years later, a full year after his passing, she still remembers and cherishes that memory. A couple visits ago she was sitting at the piano and she turned to me:
"Grandpa taught me my first scale on this piano"
A wonderful story, and the additional comment as well.
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