Can the piano lift you from grief?

So when someone dies suddenly, like my husband's co worker, about two weeks ago, how does one create order out of the chaos of sadness and grief?  I am not sure I can speak for any one else but I find, I turn to my music, which means turning to my piano.

There has never been a difficult time in my life, where I have not grabbed the piano, and for lack of a better term, hugged the instrument.  Once when I was in law school, I was lamenting to my mom, that I was too busy too play, what with work and night classes.  My mom looked up from what ever she was doing, turned to me and said, 'but there will be a time, when you will be so grateful that you can play, and that gratefulness will be the reason you will start playing and will continue to play."

Truer words were never spoken.  After I married and moved to Columbus in 1987, it was several years, perhaps about 8 of them, before my mom and dad moved the family piano down to our house.
It was at that time that my mom's words started to come true.  I found myself playing a lot of children's music in those early years of the piano re-entering my life, and when my children were in later grade school, I started taking lessons from Dr. Suzanne Newcomb, and again, I started to understand  what my mom was talking about, in terms of the piano.

For a talkative person like myself, you would think that it is easy to find my voice.  However, with my husband's colleague/co-worker's sudden death, it has been hard, hard to formulate any words.  What do you say, when a wonderful colleague and friend dies, with an amazing husband and two beautiful children.?  I answer that question with "I don't know."

So I have said to myself these past two weeks.   As I play, I am going to pray, to pray for understanding, to pray for her husband and boys, to pray for me, my husband and his team not to lose faith.  That in time, things may become clearer,  That in time, folks won't think about the tragedy, but will rejoice in the fact that they got to know her, to learn from her to be her friend.  I don't believe any of this right now, and I am sure my husband and his team don't either, but they are courageous, they are going forward and they are going to try.

So when you are all cried out, when words won't come, when I'm sorry doesn't seem like enough I turn to my 88 keys.

I play Bach, for order, for the fact that there are no pauses and you just have to keep going, mistakes and all, to try to play beautiful music.

I play pop culture music, right now that is Carole King's Beautiful musical music.  So Far Away is a beautiful ballad, that puts your sadness down on the page, whether it's children moving away, a loved one dying, a transitional career move, I could go on.

I play standards, Blue Moon, Over the Rainbow, songs my mom danced to, because even though I am still profoundly sad about her death, I learned that I have been able to carry on, challenged, but still moving forward.

I play Peanuts, because my husband's co worker was a mom, and she would want all of us mothers to be joyous, because that is a large part of being a parent, joy.  Take a moment to hear the Piano Guys rendition of Linus and Lucy on Youtube.  It will make you happy even amidst the tears.

And I play church music, traditional hymns and those, that you find at a more contemporary Catholic Mass, because I do believe the words of these songs. I do believe that we will be with God someday, and that we will have those beautiful reunions with our loved ones.  I go even further to say, that what if I get to meet Bach, or Beethoven or Mozart, or Horowitz, or Van Cliburn, or George Gershwin, I cannot handle the thought.  And when I think in those terms, I can keep going forward.

So right now, my husband and his colleagues are hurting, but there will be a point in time, where they will be grateful, they got to share a part of their lives with the life of Kim.  Whether they express that gratefulness singing to the radio, or listening to tunes at the work out center, pulling out their long lost guitar, or God forbid, grabbing their fourth grade recorder, their gratefulness for sharing her life will come.  Music will help that to happen, so don't turn your back on it, but instead believe in music's power.  And if you play the piano, sit down, play a scale, take out the last piece you ever worked on, whatever, but make it part of you.

So now on some level you can understand, why when I am completely alone, I run to my piano, yes, it is mine, and grab it and hug it, because it has saved me, and will continue to save me through life's peaks and valleys!!!