by Susan Hall. Susan is a high school English teacher. She lives with her husband and two children in Pentwater, Michigan, where she and her family enjoy cheering on her son’s Special Olympics basketball team, the Area 24 Tornadoes.
(I included this because the song Red River Valley is the one that Grandpa shared with us most often while he lived with us, and it reminds us most strongly of him. I love how it is emphasized in this essay!)
It showed up last Christmas, a gift borne by eager grandparents. Long and unwieldy, we managed it through the front door, grandparents on the porch, I inside, angling it this way and that.
Since the unwrapped present’s box boldly declared its contents, I dispensed with the usual wait-until-Christmas rule. We pried apart the box’s sharp staples, and there it was: the mother of all electronic keyboards.
My son loves music. Diagnosed at age one with a rare seizure disorder that stalled his cognitive development, he is fond of rhythm, buttons, and lights. And so we have known some keyboards over the years. They’ve been presents from all over the place: eBay, garage sales, a local grocery store. Our basement is a bone yard of broken keyboards, some still working erratically if pounded in the right spots.
The new present was spectacular. A song bank stores one hundred familiar tunes. By pressing a sequence of buttons, my son can change the instruments and tones in startling ways. We’ve heard everything from “Ode to Joy” with a disco beat to a haunting church organ rendition of “Happy Birthday.”
I love the keyboard not because my son loves it, not because it is a great educational toy, but because it safely occupies him for long stretches. As long as I hear the stops and starts of the music blaring from my son’s room, I have time to fold towels, grade a paper, throw a roast in the oven, or read about my son’s disability. I have time to fantasize about mounting some public and terrific response to my son’s affliction. The keyboards have been great babysitters.
One day I wandered into my son’s room. “Beautiful Dreamer” was playing. I sat down on the floor to cut my toenails. My son leaned back and flashed me a beatific smile. I smiled back: the music was nice, the piano just right.
A few days later my son, insistent, led me to the bathroom connected to his bedroom. He climbed up on the toilet and reached into a basket perched on the windowsill. Then he handed me a pair of nail clippers. Instantly I understood. And so I sat for a while on his bedroom floor, just listening with him. “Four-four,” I requested, naming the number for my favorite tune, “Red River Valley.”
He surprised me by accommodating my request, and we shared some smiles. As we listened, the sunlight came streaming through the blinds. It was brilliant and perfect and infused with that certain and unnamable something else.
The other day, curious, I looked up the lyrics to “Red River Valley.”
Come and sit by my side if you love me,
Do not hasten to bid me adieu.
And so I have come to believe in sitting and listening with someone as a powerful act, a loving action full with possibility. This I have learned from my son and his special music, a belief forged only after I was able to take a moment and listen.
by Korinthia Klein:
My grandfather died more than twenty-five years ago. I was fifteen. He was kind, strong, fair, and very funny. When I was a young musician, he was my biggest fan. My grandpa used to applaud when I tuned, and I would roll my eyes and shrug off his enthusiasm as too biased. I played my violin for him when he visited, and he loved everything, but each time he had one request. “Could you play ‘Amazing Grace’?” he asked, full of hope and with a twinkle in his eye, because he knew my answer was always, “I don’t know that one!” We went through this routine at every major holiday, and I always figured I’d have time to learn it for him later.
About the time I entered high school and had switched to viola and started guitar, Grandpa got cancer. The last time I saw him alive was Thanksgiving weekend in 1985. My mom warned us when we turned onto the familiar street that Grandpa didn’t look the same anymore and that we should prepare ourselves. For a moment I didn’t recognize him. He looked so small among all the white sheets, and I had never thought of my grandpa as small in any sense. We had all gathered in Ohio for the holiday, and I’m sure we all knew we were there to say good-bye. I can see now that Grandpa held on long enough to see us each one more time. I remember how we ate in the dining room and laughed and talked while Grandpa rested in his hospital bed set up in the den. I wonder if it was sad for him to be alone with our voices and laughter. Knowing Grandpa, he was probably content.
The next morning I found my moment alone with him. I pulled out my guitar, tuned to his appreciative gaze, and finally played for him “Amazing Grace.” I had worked on it for weeks, knowing it never mattered if I actually played it well and choosing not to believe as I played that it was my last concert for my biggest fan. The cancer had stolen his smile, but I saw joy in his eyes. He held my hand afterward, and I knew I had done something important.
I argued with people all through college about my music major. I was told by strangers that music wouldn’t make me any money and it wasn’t useful like being a doctor. But I know firsthand that with music I was able to give my grandpa something at a point when no one else could. Food didn’t taste good, doctors couldn’t help, and his body had betrayed him and left him helpless. But for a few minutes listening to me with my guitar, he seemed to find beauty and love and escape. At its best music is the highest expression of humanity’s better nature, and I’m privileged to contribute to such a profound tradition.
So, this I believe: Love matters. Music matters. And in our best moments they are one and the same.
