About That Piano...

I think that in a round-about kind of way, my mother bought Hannah’s piano. While she was living she would never, ever would have considered such a purchase. There was nothing in it for her. She simply would have thought it unnecessarily extravagant, much too expensive, and totally out of the question. She rarely in her life put aside her own wants and frivolities for the sake of something that would enrich the lives of her kids. Then there was the cost. Mom thought in little dollar signs. Most of her life she was pretty darned poor because neither of my parents handled money well and every dime that came their way was spent as quickly as it appeared. When they were older, and Dad made more money they were poster children for instant gratification. In mom’s later years she had some money in the bank, and often spoke of what she wanted to buy. I encouraged her to go out and blow it – but by that time she had become inert; too lazy to even spend her own income.
If I imagine the conversation while she was alive, it goes something like this: Me-“Mom, Hannah needs a piano, it’s going to cost X thousand dollars. How about buying it for her?” Her- “why would I do that?”
But, now she’s dead. If we do truly gain the perfect understanding of everything when we are taken into God's arms, and if Mom was sincere in her beliefs, and if God allows people to be aware of what is going on in the mortal world after passing, I think the conversation would go more like this: Her- “please, please, give my granddaughter at least one wonderful thing that I was too blind to give to my own kids, I wish I had understood, and done it while I lived.” Me- “Hey, I know, I’ll spend this inherited money on a really smashing piano for Hannah (...and Meredith) to play, this will spur them on to a skill that will serve them well for the rest of their lives.”
I had a dream last night. It was the new piano, but it was not new anymore (although it was still in my livingroom for some reason) A little boy was playing it. He sounded like Neil, although he seemed about 10. He was talking to someone I couldn’t see. He told them how much he loved ‘Grandma’s old piano’. I think the grandma he was talking about would have been Hannah, not Ruth. Dreams are funny things.
Thanks for the Piano, Mom. ~M.