Saturday, February 12, 2011

A short announment - I recieved a letter from my grandma

Some background:

I used to play the piano. I was never good at reading music, but I taught myself chords when I was a kid and could play pretty well "by ear." I used to noodle around on the keys a lot, picking out song melodies and making up Ryan-y compositions on-the-fly. My grandmother once asked me to make her a recording of my playing and I said I would. I never did.

I haven't played in more than a decade. I don't really remember how anymore. My grandmother, who has gotten older, sicker and lonelier every year since my grandfather died, found out and sent me this letter.

I have been thinking of you, your gift--which you didn't even have to take lessons to develop--and your many years ago Mother's Day promise to me to give me a tape of half an hour of your keyboard "wanderings." Gifts die when they are not used--if you don't believe me, just look in my cupboard at the cracked crock pot I got from your mother one Christmas and never used.

I am old and sick and I want my tape before I can no longer hear it. Your brother says you don't play at all anymore. I don't know how he knows--if he knows-- but if that is so, shame shame shame on you. I want you to set aside half an hour each day for two weeks straight--late at night, in the middle of the night--and see if you can reestablish the old synapses and hand-brain coordination. If you really try and you cannot do it, I will release you from the promise. But if you find you can, I will be so grateful I will cry--even harder than I am crying right now as I write this.

I know your life is busy and more than usually complicated right now--new semester, sharing a room with Craig, complexity piled on complexity, etc.. But please do this--for me, for yourself. To let a gift such as you had/have dry up is a sin, and you will burn in hell (assuming there is a hell) and if that doesn't scare you enough to do this, I will find a way to come back and haunt you. And THAT WILL scare you.

Love, Grandma