Ebony and Ivory

I said goodbye to my dad, hoping it wasn’t for the last time just yet, before getting into the car to be driven to the shuttle that would travel the two hours to the airport. My carry on luggage was heavier than usual because of the piano music I was lugging around in it. Only some of it was actually for professional practice. Most of it was for soothing my own soul.

My dad was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer the beginning of August that year. We were told he had four months to live. This was a blow to all of us, but especially my mother. With the support of my husband and two kids that still lived at home a thousand miles away, I stayed with my parents to lend emotional support to my mother and to help take care of my dad as he had chosen hospice rather than painful chemotherapy treatments that may or may not have extended his life a couple of months.

I was on night shift during the week so my mom could rest, and my sister took over the nights on the weekends. After 6 weeks of this arrangement, I had to go home. It was the fall and school was starting in Oregon. I was a collaborative pianist for student vocalists at the nearby university, so I needed to be present for them. I arranged my schedule so I could travel to take my turn with my dad every other weekend.

I never went anywhere, during that time, without the extra weight of a pile of music. In part so I could make sure I was up on the music of my students, in part to play for my dad who loved to lay on the couch and listen to me, but mostly I brought the music so I could calm my own spirit.

At a very young age I discovered the magic of the piano. Each key, when played, has a different sound, tone, color and flavor. I could create an unlimited possibility of sounds. When at the age of 5, I began to take piano lessons, a whole new world was opened up to me. As soon as I figured out that the black circles on a page of music represented specific notes on the ebony and ivory colored keyboard, I was off. Sight reading came easy to me. Every method book my teacher assigned to me, I consumed like a famished person.

When my family moved to southern California, my mother found me a new piano teacher who introduced me to Bach and Mozart. Then came Brahms, Rachmaninoff and Chopin. The hours and hours I spent practicing various sections of their music over and over again not only served to commit the music to my cellular memory, but it was also infusing my spirit drop by drop, note by note, tone by tone with resilience, peace and calm. You can’t continually play brilliant music by brilliant composers without it having an effect on your psyche. Even doing mundane technical exercises brought me a sense of order and calm.

On the above mentioned trip to the airport to fly home, I was uneasy because this time it would be nearly a month before I could come back. Three of my Dad’s four expected months had gone by, but I had some obligations at home that I had to fulfill. One of them was to accompany a high school aged cellist in a studio recital. He was performing the Rachmaninoff Cello concerto in G minor, Andante movement. That was one I had never heard before and I only had 10 days to learn it, own it and rehearse it with the cellist before performance day. That process turned out to be a blessing in disguise. For one thing, it was the most beautiful cello/piano piece I had ever heard. Or maybe it just had the perfect vibrations and color tones for what I needed at that time. I spent hours everyday practicing that luscious music. It is rhythmically challenging but full of rich, warm, heart string pulling harmonies and once learned, so satisfying to play. However, the learning of it took many, many repetitions. But with every repetition and every do-over, another drop of balm was layered into my soul to strengthen it against the grieving that was about to occur - that in fact had already begun because of the pending loss of my father.

I did make it back in time to play for my dad once more. Ironically, that weekend was also the wedding of my oldest son. The juxtaposition of the beginning of a new future and the ending of an honorable one was poignant.

Two days after my son’s wedding, my Dad passed away. I turned to my piano and played it for days. Mendelssohn, Brahms, Chopin, Beethoven, Bach, Rachmaninoff are my therapists. Just listening to these composers has a positive effect on anyone to be sure, but for me, there is something even deeper to be gained by physically playing them. The act of interpreting and recreating through the piano the intent of other mind and soul creations gets not only in my ears, but in my head, my hands, my cells, my spirit. It shapes how I think and how I feel. It opens a two way conduit of communication to heaven. Many times I have sent my prayer through song to heaven and felt, or rather, comprehended a response in return.

Two years have now passed since that initial diagnoses followed by four months of loving goodbyes. I don’t think we ever really get over the passing of someone we love, but we do learn to cope and to develop a new balance without them. Life goes on with it’s pattern of ups and downs, stresses and joys. I continually sit down to my piano, which actually does have keys made of ebony and ivory. It is over 120 years old and has a beautiful tone quality and resonant original sound board. It continues to ground me when I’m overwhelmed, soothe me when my nerves are stressed, and comfort me when grief comes visiting again.