The Piano Nobody Plays
The lid stays closed and a lamp sits on top.
Picture a man named Earl, 73, a widower. In the corner of his living room stands the upright piano his wife Joyce played every evening for forty years. Since she died, nobody has touched it. The lid stays closed and a lamp sits on top. Earl plans to rent a small apartment abroad for most of the year, and his son Dale lives in a city apartment where the piano would not fit through the door.
A piano is heavy, and moving one can cost a good deal. Earl called two dealers. One offered a small sum if Earl paid for the moving. The other said, kindly, that he would have to look at it first and could not promise anything.
Earl put it off for a month. Then the choir director at his church mentioned that a young teacher named Lena, 24, had just opened a music studio in a rented room. She taught children after school, and she was using a keyboard with plastic keys.
Earl phoned her. Lena came that weekend and played a scale. Two keys were a little out of tune, and she said so honestly. Then she played the opening of a hymn, slowly. Earl sat on the sofa with his hands on his knees.
“I would love to have it,” she said. “I could get a tuner and a mover. Is that all right?”
Earl said yes. On the day of the move, two men tipped the piano onto a blanket and began to slide it toward the door. Earl stood in the hall and felt his chest tighten.
“Wait,” he said.
The men stopped. Earl walked over and ran his hand along the lid once, as Joyce used to. He lifted the bench and took out her sheet music, the worn hymnal and the Christmas carols. He handed the pile to Lena.
“These belong with it,” he said. The men lifted again and carried the piano out into the sun.
| What the piano held | Where it goes now |
|---|---|
| Forty years of evenings | A room with a student on the bench every afternoon |
| Joyce's sheet music | In Lena's studio, open on the stand |
| An empty corner | A place to put a chair by the window |
Three weeks later Lena sent Earl a short video. A boy of about eight was playing a slow, careful tune, and he got to the end without a mistake. Earl watched it several times.
You could…
- Ask a church, a school or a music teacher whether someone is looking for a piano.
- Offer the sheet music and the bench along with it.
- Ask the new owner to send you a short video or a note.
Is there an instrument in your home that is waiting for hands? Write in below. A reader who knows a teacher or a student without an instrument could pass your answer along.
Tell us in the comments