Moving Forward Requires Valuing the Past

Salty water slid it’s way down Jonathan's face following the barely present contours in his young, 12 year old face. The droplet hung on his chin, suspended for a few moments until landing on the face of an old woman confused where to go, the wrinkles of her skin pulling it in different directions. As it slowly made it's way down another tear landed next to her forehead, sinking deep into the rich, red velvet lining her casket. Jonathan had never felt this before, and it was an inexplicable feeling of relief. His thoughts drifted to the way things had been before her passing, the piano lessons he despised, the way she would berate him for forgetting to do his homework she had assigned him the day before. She was everything for him, a teacher, a mother, a constant for him, filling a void that his parents no longer could. But now she had joined them and he felt as if a vice that had been ever tightening on his life had, at last, let go. He finally stepped away from the cold casket after what seemed like an eternity and made his way over to a tall royal looking grand piano in the corner of the church. He slid onto the piano bench, moving it to the position he knew would be the most comfortable for reaching high notes. He laid his hands on the ivory keys feeling their comforting coolness and depressed the rightmost pedal into the floor so that the notes would sustain for what could feel like hours. As his fingers began to flow across the keys, the hours of memorization and repetition he had been forced to spend on learning this one song no longer began to feel like a chore. His appreciation for what his grandmother had done was suddenly just there and a wave of emotion washed over him like a tsunami. The realization that she was never going to slap his hands for bending too low over the keys, or that he was never going to be told off for hitting too many wrong notes. Jonathan was going to miss that, as frustrating as it had been. He felt water