This old piano

I know you my children and husband don't love my beat up old piano. Yes, she has seen better days, but she is still beautiful to me.

This piano is a living memory of generations that have come and gone. She has been played by your Great Grandma, your Great Aunt's, your Grandma, your Mom and your Aunts and Uncles and many cousins along the way. The places this piano has lived are many different homes. It has been the center of all, or hidden in a corner. If only she could tell us all the family holidays that revolved around her.


You only need to open her bench to see the music from generations past, all the way back to the 1930's. I love that I get to see the music my Grandma, my Aunts and my Mom loved and played.. In that bench are the work books that I did as a child during my lessons. When I was little this piano lived at the farm with my grandparents, the last home my mom shared with her parents. I loved that farm, the joy of going, the fun to be had, and hearing my grandma play that piano. When my grandparents sold the farm the piano came home to Lynnwood to live with us in the last home that I shared with my parents. My grandma would still play that piano when she came to stay with us. I spent hours of my childhood practicing at that piano. No TV or play till my practice and homework were done. I didn't love it like some, didn't appreciate it as much as I should have, but as and adult I know the value of it.


She has been mistreated, her keys are broken from a hundred hot wheel cars driving over them. Things have been spilled on her and in her. I know for a fact my siblings have hidden on top, behind and even tried to hide inside it at one time or another. Every little kid that came to our house loved to run their fingers over the keys to hear the sounds she would make. Still she stands straight and true, no longer with the beautiful sounds she is capable of. I know she is worth nothing in value, but in memories of love and generations of people she is invaluable to me. I don't ask that you keep her when I am gone, I just want you to know that is why I keep her while I am here. I hope that you find something in life that brings you the joy of these type memories to hold as you get older.


So for now my beautifully ugly piano will stay. I thank her for the memories that she holds for me. I cherish her as I can still see my Grandma Grace sitting on her bench. I am a person that loves things from generations, I like to think of all that have come before me that have acquired joy from those things. I know they are flawed, and so am I. Nothing is perfect and everything new becomes old at some point.


So my dearest children and husband if you don't like her just don't look at her!


Love your wife and mom!