A Mother's Gift

When I was five, my grandmother gave me her piano (a big, upright monstrosity that took six men to move) on the condition that I learn to play it. I did, and when I left for college, my piano went with me. I helped pay my way through school by being the pianist for a small church, giving lessons, and playing for weddings.

Three years after graduating from college, I moved back to my hometown and bought a small, older house. The piano was too wide to fit through the door, so it had to go back to my parent’s home. For the first time since I was five, I had no piano to play.

Early one afternoon about two months later, my mom showed up at my door and announced that she had bought me a “gift” and it would be delivered shortly. An hour later a moving truck pulled up and three men unloaded a grand piano. As I stood there in shock, my mother explained she’d been hunting me a piano that would fit through the door. Someone had told her that you could take the legs off a grand piano and turn it up on its side to fit through narrow spaces. When she saw an article in the paper about a new grand piano being donated to a large local church, she contacted them about buying their older grand. She’d spent three years of savings to buy me that piano.

The grand took up half my small living room then, and now takes up a good chunk of my den. I bought a small spinet piano about ten years ago and that is the one I play the most. Friends and family have asked why I don’t sell the grand, but I won’t sell it. Family photos of four generations grace the top and every time I look at it, I remember what extraordinary efforts my mother went through so I’d have a piano to play. It’s not really a box of strings and keys, it’s a mother’s love disguised as a grand piano.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a blessed holiday season.

Deborah                                 

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