I am at the piano. I am frustrated. I am bored. I want to stop practicing. More dramatically, I want to quit. Thirty minutes later, I am at the same piano practicing measures and phrases with endless repetition. I find myself congratulating myself on the success of my newly learned passage.

Music. Something I will never leave astray is something I have no words to emphasize its importance to my being. At the drop of a dime I find myself replaying pieces and movements I have performed, choirs I have sang with, and most of all, the music I have listened to. I will never find the correct or fitting words to explain why I am a musician. The real meaning is deep inside my being and I will never be able to share all of the love, hurt, tears, and happiness I have encountered because of the root of this journey I decided to embark upon.

As a musician, there are feelings you will never be able to piece together, there are moments of grand elation that you will never be able to share unless you shared that exact moment with someone else. Somewhere in that mess, is what I call passion. I never quit my passion. I worked hard and got exactly what I put into it. I had a vision of the musician I wanted to be and I became that exact persona. The bombshell to it all was that I had a deeper drive and a deeper ambition. Where was the music? Who held the happiness to my music?

Before ending the huddle before the halftime show, I always ended the pep talk between myself and the other drum major with “Do you best, but most of all do it for the art.” I truly believed in this. I never doubted it, but my heart begged to have you know that for me, the art was you.

It is simple to write why I miss you, but rather I will never grasp why you had to go and how I am supposed to go on without you. I understand that you are not going to be on the other end of a phone call but I don’t want to understand that reality. Losing you then was traumatic as I was a child; but now, I feel the repercussions as if the wound is fresh. I’ve lost people, not just by death, but also by disagreements, and other miscellaneous ways. All of these losses stuck with me and hurt, they even made my body ache as if the world was ending, but losing you has left a panging pain circulating through my blood daily which always leads to my heart as the final destination.

Growing into an adult, I realized I had not been the ideal child towards you as I did not find you “cool,” or “fun.” I despise this time in my life but most of all, I despise that time wasn’t on our side. I remember your warm bed, the television on loudly. I remember nagging you to take me to the “mom and pop store” many hours before they were even open for business. Somehow you never showed you were annoyed. You never adjusted your emotions because you loved me with every piece that you ever owned. I remember your “dippy eggs” for breakfast in which I never finished and the old wives’ tales you burned into my brain. “Don’t step on the crack, or you’ll break your mother’s back!” I am chanting this over and over on the way down Jeanette Street for our daily visits.

I am back at the piano, this time I am five. Playing chopsticks, and somehow although every accomplished musician cringes at the thought of its “melody” I find a warmth of happiness well inside of my body. You are sitting next to me as I am slamming my delicate fingers across your mother’s piano. How did you manage to keep your sanity? Was it your eternal love for me? I might have questioned that before but now I know that you loved me and placed an emphasis of pride in my young self that other than my parents, I would never feel or have again.

I don’t know how to say thank you, but rather I know how to say “I love you.” I loved you then, I love you now, and I will love you for the rest of my days. I will never stop because you taught me how to love even when I did not know you were teaching me. You taught me compassion, you taught me strength, but most of all you taught me how to value family. The love you held for your family is a candle I know will never burn out. You lit it solely on your own hard work and never allowed it to dissipate.

I know I will never see you again. I understand that. But I will never stop daydreaming of what could have been or what should have been. Should haves and could haves will haunt me for the remainder of my life. I envision random visits to have toast with tea to dip it into. I still see your smile and the way your eyes crinkled when you laughed as your laugh was timeless when you released every bit of yourself. It was genuine. I see your eyes and the eloquence they captured. They held years of pain, of hard work, of heartbreak, loss, and most of all, love.

You exemplified your life through the mantra music does. It never stops, it never ends, and when it does, there is always a sequel to pick up where the last left you hanging to feel more, to experience more. How does one with so much luggage pick up where you left off? I want to, but somedays I do not know if it is possible. But, I always try for you.

The hardest times are the times I know I need you here. I needed you through my qualifications for districts, regionals, and states, I needed you there for church solos, and I needed you there to help me practice. I did not want the glory of my accomplished Nana but rather I wanted the intimate times that would have been shared and only known to the two of us by making music together rather than doing so in the memory of you. It was never just a want, but rather always a need I had possessed. I guess however, in some kind of way, I got all of those listed above. I got your help and the touch filled with warmth through trying times of life which I had always seemed to fill with music. You were what was filling the void.

Tears are now streaming down my face as I realize this article is not for anyone but you. It is not even for myself to vent. Rather, I would give nothing less than to send this to the beauty where you now retreat to and kiss you for you to understand all of this without the pain and suffering it takes for me to muster out these cold words. I know everyone has a time to go to their resting place, but you should be here. There are far too many times I find myself begging that you are able to hear me rather than being able to be with you and letting all of our feelings resonate within that moment.

It isn’t fair and I know I will never deem any of this fair.

People would think that a couple odd years of the loss of a loved one would have been healed by the time the person is an adult. I beg to differ. I know better because I know how you were, and how you still are. You are the music, you are where the music lies. I won’t let that piece of me go away for as long as I live because the memory of you is the memory that haunts me the most. I cannot do anything through music without knowing that you are the ultimate reason I am where I am, who I am, and why I am. Some people never get to experience that love, but I was part of the blessed few who had someone’s legacy live on for as long as their name is remembered.

I learned some of the hardest lessons exactly so, the hard way. I had to deal with pain to know comfort. I had parents who loved me unconditionally but I also had an angel who never allowed me to feel alone. How desperately I wish I could call you and tell you that you are the reason for my success in music which led to my success as a person. Without you, I would not have music, and without music, I would not have myself. Without you, I’m not me. It is easy to cry about your absence which I find myself doing regularly, but it is harder and much more valuable to know the support I have at the mansion above in the keeper of my music, my hopes, and my dreams. I can hear you now, singing our song, and I am singing it in harmony with your beauty.

“I'm satisfied with just a cottage below

A little silver and a little gold

But in that city where the ransomed will shine

I want a gold one that's silver lined

I've got a mansion just over the hilltop

In that bright land where we'll never grow old

And some day yonder we will never more wander

But walk on streets that are purest gold

Don't think me poor or deserted or lonely

I'm not discouraged I'm heaven bound

I'm but a pilgrim in search of the city

I want a mansion, a harp and a crown

I've got a mansion just over the hilltop

In that bright land where we'll never grow old

And some day yonder we will never more wander

But walk on streets that are purest gold”

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