Long Hollow

Oktoberfest, Lago Vista Style!

October 9, 2015

St. Mary Our Lady of the Lake's Oktoberfest tradition started way before we moved to Lago Vista. Some of the aspects of it change from year to year, but overall it remains the same in two areas:

1. it's a lot of fun

2. it's the main fundraiser for our small church

Those are two good reasons why you and your family should come visit us between 10 and 3 this Saturday, if you are anywhere near the Austin vicinity.

All proceeds benefit church organizations, such as the St. Vincent de Paul Society, who use it to help the disadvantaged in our community, provide scholarships, finance youth activities, and support local first-responders, the Lago Vista Volunteers, seminarians, and more.

Sure, I know ACL is going on downtown. But if you're looking for something to do for the whole family, away from the craziness of Zilker Park during ACL, look no farther. This is it!

There will be games for the kids, with prizes. Games for adults, with prizes. A zipline for the kids. A classic car "show and shine" for all ages.

Inside the church you'll find a silent auction, handcrafted items, baked goods, and frozen casseroles (although those sell out fast so you need to get yours early! You can pay for it and pick it up when you're ready to leave.)

We'll have a dunking booth and a washer tournament, of course. What's a small town festival without those?

Come hungry. We're offering bratwurst, turkey legs, hamburgers, hot dogs, giant soft pretzels…. lots of choices!

Of course, there will be beer. What's an Oktoberfest without beer? Live Oak Brewing Company, which is Austin's oldest brewery, has agreed once again to donate plenty of keg beer for the day, and Capital Wright Distributing is donating plenty of Miller Lite, Coors Light, and St. Pauli Girl beer.

By the way, thank you for your prayers for Father Joe. He passed away soon after I wrote my last post, surrounded by his family.

This year's Oktoberfest will be bittersweet because of his passing. He pastored the church for forty years, guiding it as it grew from a small gathering of ten families in a rustic campground building to an established parish caring for over 300 families.

He saw Oktoberfest as a way for the parish and community to come together for a good cause, and get to know each other as one family in the process. That was always very important to him.

Rest in peace, Father Joe.

So come on down and help us make it the best ever!

St. Mary Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church, 6100 Lohman Ford Rd., Lago Vista, TX

Saturday, October 10 from 10 am to 3 pm

If you can't join us on Saturday, please say a prayer for a successful Oktoberfest, and continue to pray for Father Joe's family. Thank you!
Happy birthday, Daddy!

October 7, 2015

My Daddy's been gone two years now, so it's truly a blessing that I can still see him in my mind, alive and well, with eyes twinkling. Even now, I turn to him in tough times and hear his voice encouraging me.

Photographs and blog posts help keep his memory fresh. I've spent the past twenty minutes reading over some old ones. My favorites are "Dear Daddy" and "When Wishes Come True", but "A Blessed Birthday" is bittersweet. It was the last birthday he celebrated on earth.

I suspected it might be when I wrote it.

My daddy was a great man. Of course, I didn't realize it for most of my life, because he wasn't great in the worldly way, and not even in the obviously spiritual way. He was humble. He didn't like a lot of attention aimed at him. But he was funny and generous and hardworking.

Most importantly, he loved with all of his heart, fiercely and unconditionally, hanging on despite the inevitable pain that love like that brings. That's true strength, I believe, and I want to live and love like that.

Thank you, Daddy. I love you and miss you and give thanks for you every day. May you be celebrating every day in heaven!

There’s something like a line of gold thread running through a man’s words when he talks to his daughter, and gradually over the years it gets to be long enough for you to pick up in your hands and weave into a cloth that feels like love itself.

~John Gregory Brown, Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery, 1994

Tonight, please keep another Father of mine in your prayers. Twenty years ago, when I knew it was time to make up my mind about becoming Catholic, Monsignor Joseph Schmitt, the pastor of our small church, agreed to meet with me one-on-one every Tuesday to answer my questions.

After a few months, I was confirmed a Catholic… and was quickly recruited by him to teach CCD. I often covered for the church secretary, so I spent many days working alongside him, having lively discussions over lunch, and then serving beside him on our church planning committee. He offered blessings on our vacations, comfort when we were in pain, and advice when we felt lost.

Just a few months younger than my dad, Father Joe's health has been steadily declining. He's been in the hospital several days now and isn't expected to recover. I'm grateful I was able to stop and see him yesterday… to tell him thank you and let him know how grateful I am that he was a part of our lives.

Please pray for peace and comfort, for him and his family. Thank you!

Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father!

~Lydia M. Child, Philothea: A Romance, 1836
Finishing a blog post, and other sweet!s from September…

September 29, 2015

Tonight there's a super moon and lunar eclipse, all rolled into one event. I planned to take photos as the moon rose above the horizon, but discovered my camera battery was dead!

So I charged it some and then made it out in time to witness the eclipse with Daniel, who just arrived home safely from a weekend trip to west Texas with his brother, where they hiked through canyons, visited eclectic art exhibits, experienced a music festival, and even saw the Marfa lights. Sweet!

However, the photos I took of the eclipse are pretty lame because my equipment isn't quite high tech enough, so I'm not even going to share them here, but standing there in the quiet of the night with my son, watching the moon slowly turn dark, was just the peaceful break I needed after a hectic, high stress week.

The thing is, September overflowed with sweet! moments, but it rushed by so fast, it was hard to really stop and savor them. So I'm determined to get back into the practice of recording them, in some form or fashion. And reviewing them here on my blog helps a lot!

So, working backward from the lunar eclipse, here are a few I've gathered this month…

Anticipation of an annual weekend at the beach with friends, which isn't as good as the actual weekend, but it's still a shining light full of hope! (This photo is from last year.)

Joining other council members from your church for an inspirational retreat. A peaceful setting, an energetic, passionate, funny leader, and a Pope Selfie, courtesy of an iPhone app!

After viewing several properties with a young family, walking into yet another house and knowing immediately it was just the right one for them.

Remembering the night 34 years ago when you met your love for the very first time.

Walking your puppy in the glow of a glorious sunrise.

Finding out your friend has published another book! (Buy it on Amazon and I'll get a couple of pennies! Beneath this Mountain, by Byron Tully)

Thinking you're attending the surprise 30th birthday party of a girl/woman you've watched grow up, and then witnessing a proposal of marriage from her boyfriend who was supposed to still be in Iraq (on his 4th tour of duty, no less.) Whew! That was a lot of sweet!s for one night!

Hitting a pinata for the first time in 50 years! (This photo is obviously not me. It's my son, who got lots of practice thanks to all of his birthday parties growing up. But I do have a video of myself hitting it, courtesy of my daughter-in-law's cousin. (Thanks, Sierra!) I just have to say, hitting a pinata is GREAT therapy!)

Football Fiestas thrown by your kids. (My son and his wife are party meisters! Food, fun, activities, games, football on several televisions, and even crafts for all ages.)

The Texas Capitol Rotunda.

Attending a Platinum Top 50 Real Estate Agents of Austin event at Lakeway Resort, and witnessing a gorgeous sunset on Lake Travis.

Another sunset on Lake Travis.

Joining others to pray for a friend's baby grandson who will be undergoing heart surgery today, Tuesday, September 29. Please join us!

Celebrating a friend's birthday at an awesome Italian restaurant.

Not having to replace your whole air-conditioning system in your house… yet.

Young love and heroes.

Dinner and a movie with friends.

Enjoying a performance by accordion players with your mom.

A day of sunshine and water on Lake Travis, with your son and daughter-in-law and friends.

Remembering and honoring a special person.

(You may have guessed that I actually started this post last night. Probably even before that, but I had good intentions last night. What matters most, for me, is being able to look back through the quick iPhone photos to see that the month was truly full of special moments. Too often I let them pass and fade away, forgotten. Taken for granted.

Well, here's one for today. A sweet young couple closed on their current home today after having their offer on a new home accepted late last night. My job is full of ups and downs, but that was definitely one of the ups.

So here's to an October full of balance and appreciation and focus, where no sweet! slips away unnoticed!)

"Gratitude is an art of painting an adversity into a lovely picture."

~Kak Sri
Every evening at 5:30…

September 21, 2015

Did you know that every evening at 5:30 pm on Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, the Star-Spangled Banner is played over loudspeakers, and at the first note, everyone stops walking, talking, or whatever they are doing to salute the closest United States flag, whether they can actually see it or not?

I didn't know it, until last weekend. I found it very reassuring, like knowing that every minute of every day, prayers for peace are being lifted at a Mass somewhere in the world.

Is there a way to have the Star-Spangled Banner play on my phone every evening at 5:30, so I don't forget to be grateful for my country and our freedom?

Four days spent on an Air Force base, attending graduation ceremonies and hanging out with an airman, is a great reminder of the sacrifices that are made on our behalf every day to ensure that freedom.

I'm grateful I was able to do just that this past weekend, surrounded by young men and women (so young!) focused on serving their/our country for the next few years, ready to go where they are told to go and do what they are told to do.

TG's boyfriend is one of them, currently training for a job that isn't very safe, but it's the one he feels called to do. My prayers will be with him and all of the others, along with my thanks, as they head off on this journey.

This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.

~Elmer Davis
How do you hug a house?

September 6, 2015

So, house, we love thee, as we could not love
A palace wherein no pulse of love had struck,
Where farewells had not been—and where
No busy memories haunt the vacant rooms.
~J.J. Britton (1832–1913), "A Home"

I'm nearing the end of this summer's journey of clearing out my parents' home.

My childhood home.

What began as a heavy weight upon my heart turned into a mission of love. I admit that when I began this project I was irritated they my parents hadn't taken me up on my many offers to help them sort through closets and boxes.

I vowed I wouldn't leave a task like this for my kids.

But it turned out to be a cathartic experience, after all… the sorting, the remembering (thanks to my sister!) … it all awakened a flood of happy memories centered in that simple house.

Plus, I felt I was repaying my parents, doing something for them that they couldn't do for themselves. It had usually been the other way around.

Although, it turns out Daddy had been doing a little sorting. The attic, a place I had feared all of my life and dreaded peering into during this process, turned out to be totally empty.

Thank you, Daddy!

Now I'm not so worried about leaving a project like this for my kids. (Sorry, kids! Blame your grandparents!)

But don't worry… I definitely plan to weed through and toss (I have way more stuff than my parents!) but I can see how the process can be a healing one.

As a good parent, how can I begrudge my children a healing experience?

My kids were awesome, though, all three coming with me when they could, and even TG's boyfriend one Saturday, cleaning and sorting, and helping to carry furniture. Daniel is the one who actually braved the attic and saw that the coast was clear. Whew!

And Tom is the one who truly helped lift the weight off my heart and helped me begin to move forward; he whirled from room to room like the Tasmanian Devil, cleaning out pantries and drawers, making more progress in one day than I had in a week's worth of Saturdays.

None of us looked forward to the four-hour drive there and back every Saturday this summer, much less the three to four hours spent there sweating in an un-air-conditioned home in the Houston suburbs, in the hottest part of the day, in the hottest part of a Texas summer.

Ugh.

It was exhausting.

But my parents were extraordinary in so many ways, and again, I'm grateful we could do this for them. I'm glad their last days in the house were spent as if they would go on there forever, not spent sorting and preparing for the day they would no longer be there.

It helped that most of the large pieces of furniture went to friends… or friends of friends. Who became new friends.

I took photos as we said goodbye, which in some weird way helped me let go.

I've already written about my grandmother's piano...

Daddy's chair went to a young dad-to-be. I think Daddy would like it that it would be used to rock a baby. He loved babies.

The kitchen table was another tough one. So many holiday meals, school projects, and breakfasts by Daddy with my kids.

So many hours reading Tarzan or Nancy Drew, and so many gallons of coffee consumed while just talking, talking, talking…

Oh, the stories that table could tell!

But… I didn't need the table. Honestly, it was stained with so much newspaper ink I knew it would need a good refinishing, and the last thing I needed was another project.

I'm satisfied to have my memories and hundreds of photos of holiday meals, breakfasts with Daddy, and birthday celebrations around it.

So I said goodbye.

It's going to a new friend's mom's house, where I hope it will be the center of many happy memories-in-the-making.

But to answer my own question: "How do you hug a house?"

One way is to turn an estate sale into a celebration, where friends buy your furniture, keep you company, and bring wine to toast the awesomeness of growing up in a home that overflowed with love, where the good memories overpowered the bad ones by far.

Thank you, Rae, for making sure we celebrated instead of mourned. And thank you to all of the other friends who bought furniture, helped with the estate sale, or just stopped by to say hello on one of those Saturdays. It truly carried us through this.

If you're faced with this journey, my advice to you is to embrace it. See it as the mission of love that it is, a last gift to your parents. Dive into the memories and embrace them, the good and the bad, because they are what made you distinctly you.

Don't be afraid to hang on to too many photos or knick knacks. If there's any hesitation whether to keep it or toss it, just keep it. You can toss it later. It doesn't matter when you do it. It can be a process.

But also realize that goodbyes are okay. Those objects did their job. They were part of your parents' lives – or your grandparents' lives or your brother's life, as in my case. They already served a purpose or brought joy.

They don't necessarily have to be a part of your life.

But I'm grateful for the memories I have, and the ones my sister can share with me, since she's older. I'm also so grateful I had her right beside me on this journey.

And I'm extremely grateful for all of the photographs I've inherited, along with the ones I've taken. They will keep that sweet old house alive even after we say our final goodbye.

You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it’s all right.

~Maya Angelou
Coach Christine and the Cosmos – the story continues…

September 4, 2015

Once upon a time, I was a soccer mom, sweating or freezing on the sidelines, gripping the arms of my collapsible chair, or pacing up and down, trying my best to bite my tongue, when I couldn't sit still.

And then TG joined the Cosmos, and Coach Christine took all of my angst onto her own shoulders. I no longer had to pace or coach from the sidelines. She paced up and down, shouted when and what I longed to shout, got angry when I was angry…

I was finally able to sit on the sidelines and enjoy the game. What a relief!

It was after TG had graduated from high school and said her goodbyes to the Cosmos that we learned of Christine's cancer, and then later, of her passing. It inspired me to write about her in "Coach Christine, Queen of the Cosmos."

But Christine's passion and joy extended beyond the soccer field. As a registrar for the Leander School District, she touched many lives, and that's why the district decided to name a new school after her this year.

And if that isn't awesome enough, that a district would name a school after a mom/registrar, the mascot for the school is the Cosmos.

TG and I attended the dedication of the elementary school yesterday afternoon. Coach David and Christine's brother, who they adopted at age 11 when their mom passed away of cancer, spoke about Christine's bravery, passion, and high standards. Her daughter and two sons sat on the stage, smiling at the recognition given to their mom. She would be proud of them.

Christine juggled two jobs, coached a couple of soccer teams, shuttled three kids to practices, managed a household, and took on the responsibility of raising her brother, all with a huge smile. She showed no favoritism. All were loved and criticized equally.

That's what I already knew – and loved – about her.

What I didn't know was she also helped some of the girls on the Cosmos with their college applications and paid their application fees when they balked about going. She grew up in Harlem, New York City, valedictorian of her high school, and won scholarships to a prep school in New England and went on to Lehigh University.

She believed in education and accepted no excuses.

So kudos to Leander School District for recognizing that Christine Camacho absolutely deserved to have this new school named after her. It was probably my imagination, but I could sense Christine there… so much energy and joy and excitement.

Coach David asked the Cosmos girls to stand up. There were six or seven of them there, out of about 20 who wore the Cosmos jerseys. Pretty impressive, considering they are all in their early 20's now, and many no longer live in the area.

At the end of the dedication , they joined the staff in the Cosmos chant…

"C! o-s-o-s M! o-s-o-s C! o-s-o-s M! o-s-o-s COSMOS!"

That chant, and the Cosmos, will live on forever… in Leander, Texas. That makes me very happy.

I hope you rest in peace, Christine, knowing that the seeds you planted are blooming and thriving.

Some people say soccer's a matter of life or death, but it isn't. It's much more important than that.

~Variation of a famous saying
On a Friday the 13th…

August 13, 2015

Thirty-three years. That's officially how long Tom and I have been married as of this evening, around 6 or 7 pm.

And they said you couldn't find lasting love in a bar…

…No more looking for love in all the wrong places
Looking for love in too many faces
Searching your eyes, looking for traces
Of what.. I'm dreaming of…
Now that I found a friend and a lover
God bless the day I discover
You, oh you, lookin' for love.

~Wanda Mallette and Patti Ryan

(For our first dance as a married couple, we chose "Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places." Yes, really! And I still love that song!)

They also said getting married on a Friday the 13th was bad luck…that once Tom graduated from college with his degree he'd dump me…that building a house together was suicide for a marriage…

We proved them all wrong.

At least for thirty-three years, now, anyway. If I've learned one thing since my wedding day, it's to not take your love or marriage for granted. To say we've had our ups and downs is putting it mildly…and it can turn in a heartbeat.

But if it ended tomorrow, I'd have no regrets. Meeting Tom that fortuitous night in the Diamondback Saloon was a blessing…a seed that continued sprouting and blooming into a garden of blessings.

I'm so grateful for each and every one of these thirty-three years…even the bad ones, because they helped me appreciate the good ones.

photo by bloom photography

(I've also learned that thirty-three years can go by really fast!)

Happy 33rd anniversary to the love of my life!

…But the greatest of these is love.

~1 Corinthians 13:13

(This is a slightly edited re-post from another anniversary a few years ago, if it sounds familiar, but it's all still true!)
Sharing delights. And sorrows, too.

August 10, 2015

An older sister is a friend and defender – a listener, conspirator, a counsellor and a sharer of delights. And sorrows too.

~Pam Brown

For a few years, my sister and I shared the small room above. It was painted a pale purple at the time.

It was in this room that I remember watching "The Wizard of Oz" on a tiny television during one of the many times I was sick with asthma, and I remember lying in bed struggling to go to sleep on a Christmas Eve because my brother and sister swore they heard jingle bells outside the window and I was afraid Santa would pass us by because I was still awake.

Later my sons shared this room when we came to visit. A friend recently bought the twin beds my boys slept in for her own grandkids. My sister took the small table that sat between them and I brought my mom's cedar chest home with me.

Now it's empty, except for that lamp.

Except… it's not empty. I still see our full size bed with its spread and matching shams of purple roses. I see our twin beds made into trundles, with a little play space under one, filled with my stuffed animals. I see my boys snuggled under their blankets in their twin beds, a lamp on and books open, reading into the night and sleeping late the next day.

For the past few months, I've spent every Saturday at my parents' home, sorting through drawers and boxes and cabinets, trying to decide what to keep, what to toss, and what to sell.

But I haven't been alone. Through it all, my big sister has been by my side, as she always has when I've gone through something tough, helping to make a job I dreaded turn into a mission of love. A catharsis. I couldn't have done all of this without her help and support. Because of her I'm able to see that the love that was borne in that house will never fail. It's still there, but it's also in us. It's eternal.

I'm so grateful for her and for the hours I've been able to spend with her this summer, one Saturday at a time. She is truly proof that God loves me.

Today is her birthday. I hope it overflowed in blessings because she deserves to get back at least some of what she's given over the years.

Happy birthday, Brenda! I love you!

Please go here and here to read more about my beautiful sister.
Baby girls, and other sweet!s

July 17, 2015

Baby girls

twirl into your life

a sweet pink rush

of kisses and hugs and giggles,

petticoats and tiaras,

soccer cleats and mudpies,

baby dolls and bicycles,

makeup and skinned knees,

spitfire and swallowed tears.

They're a wonder to behold,

an ever-changing blessing.

~ me

Today my baby turned 24 years old. Does that still qualify as a baby?

(I'm not really asking. I know it does, when you're a mom. I'm 56 and still my mama's baby, even though I do most of the bossing and mothering these days.)

Tonight we celebrated with pizza, ice cream, chocolate cake, and lots of laughs. I wish I could share the photos, but I'm forbidden.

On Monday TG's boyfriend starts Air Force bootcamp. Please keep him in your prayers.

There have been lots of sweet! moments in the past few weeks… a wedding, the 4th of July and fireworks, lunches with friends, tiny morning glories beside the road, and baby deer toddling across the road … but probably one of the sweetest things is I've been too busy with work and clients to share the others with you! That's an answer to my prayers.

I truly do enjoy this job I resisted for so long, where I'm able to help people find homes, or be rid of properties so they can move on to a new dream. It's challenging, but that just adds to the sweetness of it. I have good intentions of getting back into the rhythm of blogging, but we'll see.

However, today was my baby's birthday, and I just had to share that sweet! with all of you!
New Beginnings

July 3, 2015

"Every goodbye is a new beginning."

~ me (and probably a bunch of other people)

This afternoon I said goodbye to an old friend: my grandmother's piano. A friend from high school bought it for her granddaughter. She met me at my parents' home today and I helped her load it onto a trailer.

(A neighbor, Jack, and Kevin, a stranger Shelia met down the street who drove a medical equipment delivery truck so Shelia offered him some money to help, also helped. We couldn't have done it without them, although Shelia is obviously very resourceful!)

I'm so relieved it will be played again. Loved again. I pray it continues making music for many years to come, and that another granddaughter loves it as much as I loved it.

It's not the most beautiful piano in the world, obviously, but that piano was played by many fingers and loved by many hearts. What else matters?

In its honor, I'm re-posting something I wrote several years ago, when I first accepted this inevitable goodbye. I hope you enjoy it. It's a good reminder to me as I sort through my parents' home that memories are the true treasure.

The Piano

I sit in a corner of Mam-ma's bedroom in front of the piano, fingers splayed in position, tapping out the notes I'm reading from my Lesson Book.

Or my sister's lesson book. I liked her music more than mine.

The piano is an upright, with old family photos displayed on top that distract me.

There's one of Mam-ma's four children. My mother was the baby.

And there's one of Mam-ma at thirteen (shortly before she was married) with her best friend. I can't remember her friend's name, but I can hear the tremble in Mam-ma's voice telling me how she died soon after the photo was taken. Mam-ma learned of her friend's death in a letter.

It's hard for me to imagine my mother as a baby. And with that dark hair, Mam-ma looks just like my mother.

Big things for a kid to wrap their heads around and try to play the piano at the same time.

***********************************************************

I'm draped on the couch, watching television. Probably eating a Fudge-sicle. Mam-ma's warbly voice drifts out to me from her bedroom, dancing with the notes she coaxes from her piano with aged fingers…

…I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses…

Music I've grown up with. Part of the soundtrack of my life.

Blessed Assurance … The Old Rugged Cross … Rock of Ages … What a Friend We Have in Jesus …

I get up and close her bedroom door so I can hear the television.

*********************************************************

But I can still hear her voice; it drifts to me even now where I sit tapping away at my computer, hundreds of miles from the piano, and seventeen years or so from her last day on earth.

I can see her sitting at the piano, fingers playing across the keys, hear her voice filling the house with melody, one hymn after another, just as she did all the days of my youth and more … day after day, year after year.

…And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own …

That's why I've wanted that piano. I wanted my kids to grow up with its song in their ears, just as I did. Wanted them to take lessons, just like I did and sit before it, plunking out the boring songs from my latest lesson, or play around on it with Chopsticks and other fun tunes, just like I did.

But time is so slippery. Somehow my kids grew up and out before I could make the piano a part of our family.

Why didn't we move it sooner? I'm sure we had good reasons, but the exact ones evade me now.

Perhaps I didn't want to rush my mother. It's tough parting with things that belonged to loved ones, and Mam-ma's death hit her pretty hard. Nothing budged from Mam-ma's room for years.

More likely I was too focused on building this home and getting out of our tiny rent house – a process that took ten years – to worry about the piano.

I didn't realize my mom was ready to part with it until recently. It takes up a lot of space, after all, and she's ready to have her living room back. The piano was moved there after Tropical Storm Alicia flooded the house and the wood floors needed to be redone. It was just too much work to move the piano back into Mam-ma's room.

I've begged my mom for time, racking my brain trying to figure out how to get the piano up here, making one promise ("Soon! Soon!") after another.

But we traded Tom's truck for my new car ($4900 for a truck we only paid $2500 for to begin with – we couldn't pass up that deal!) and even if we found a way to transport the piano without destroying it, there's the matter of getting it into the house. Our driveway leading to the back door is nothing more than an eroded dry creek bed right now, full of deep ruts. It would challenge a 4-wheel drive monster truck! We (as in Tom) have gathered rocks to pave it, but who knows how long it will be before it's vehicle-worthy.

This past weekend I had a grown-up moment: I realized how selfish and silly it is for me to ask my mom to hold on to the piano any longer. I don't need it; it's too late for my kids to grow up with it, and whatever I learned from my lessons flew away from my brain long ago.

I believe Mam-ma learned to play in her fifties (that's when she got the piano), but I'm not about to take more lessons now; I'd rather play my drums.

More than all of that, I realized I don't need it to keep memories of Mam-ma alive. She's singing to me right now, in my heart, without the piano.

So I'm going to tell my mom it's okay to get rid of it. It's time for me to let this dream go – or to realize it has already left. A much better tribute to Mam-ma's music will be to let it go where it will be played again, rather than be a museum piece, gathering dust.

… And the melody that He gave to me

within my heart is ringing.

Amen.

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