Fascination
The year that I graduated from the eighth grade, my mom wasn’t doing very well. Her mind was fractured by mental-health problems, and I begged my Aunt Sally to let me come and visit for the summer. I still remember how she paused at my request, and then said, “You can come, but you have to practice your piano.”
“Yes. Yes. Yes.” I agreed.
When I arrived at her home in Milwaukee, she pointed to the piano bench, which contained a wide variety of sheet music. I grabbed the old standard “Fascination,” and that music became my morning companion. I wasn’t a particularly ambitious piano student, so I was content to play the same notes, morning after morning, day after day, week after week.
I noticed that eventually when I sat down at the piano my Aunt Sally would head to the basement to do laundry. And finally, as the same notes wafted throughout her house, she started taking the dog on very long walks.
Before I headed back to my home in Indianapolis at the end of the summer, my aunt gave me the sheet music — probably because she never wanted to hear those notes again.
Nearly 20 years later when I was in my 30s, my husband Steve surprised me with the gift of a beautiful piano one Christmas Eve. I found the old “Fascination” sheet music and tried out the new keys. The notes were like comfort food to me.
I don’t sit down at the piano much anymore; but when I do, I reach for that sheet music first because those notes have become my old friends.
I’m in a Silver Sneakers class for senior citizens, which is held at the YMCA, and our exercise classes are highlighted by great songs from the 1950s and 1960s. Our aging bodies come alive as we hear the tunes from our youth. In class, we literally stomp our feet and wave our arms in time to the old songs that we loved as teenagers.
It’s been amazing to me, now that I’m in my mid-60s, to realize how music has followed me throughout my life.
I now realize that God our Father has been even more faithful in my life than those old standards.
I now know that He has had His hand on me all these years – even when I didn’t have my eyes on Him.
And when I do stop and remember to invite Him into my day? His Presence is even more reassuring than those old songs, which carried me through some pretty good days and some particularly hard ones.
