" Doc" at one of her happy places, the organ at St Michael's Basilica, Pensacola FL
Dear Doc...
I have not written one of these Letters to Heaven in a while.
That does not mean that I don't think of you-- I do think of you and miss you every day. When you first died, I spent several months writing " Dear Doc" letters in a spiral notebook. This practice helped me feel closer to you as our relationship changed from both of us being on this Earthly plane to one of us residing in Heaven.
Your " homegoing" {as you so lovingly referred to death} was the first significant loss in my life. For 45 years, I'd not experienced a profound loss, and for that fact I am grateful. Both my parents are still alive and healthy, and until you died, all the deaths I'd known that were close to me were people who were sick and/or elderly.
I remember the last time we saw each other. Nathaniel {may his soul rest in peace and power, too} messaged me on Facebook and said something to the effect of " Your better go see my Mom now, if you are planning to see her at all." Our brief visit is something that I will cherish for the rest of my natural life. True to form, you did not wish to talk about yourself, you wanted to hear everything about me: since our e-mail correspondence of 22 years had slowed down with you declining health.
Anyway, here is an update:
I am doing well in my piano study. A lot of what I do is more like physical therapy. For instance: my teacher has me doing drills with my hands, strengthening my muscles and { more importantly} starting to heal those damaged neural pathways from my birth injury. You'll be glad to know that I mastered the " 8-Finger Scale" using one hand at a time, and the next task is for me to master the 8-Finger -Scale using both hands at the same time. Oy, vey!
I won't lie, this is hard stuff. When I was at UWF and in your choir groups, I'd always admired how your fingers would, with amazing agility, play the scales for our warm-ups. Your years of dedication made scales look easy to the {then uninformed} observer. It took me several weeks, but I did master the 8-finger scale using one hand at a time. My teacher told me to start and end my day with prayers and scales. She, like you, is a woman of deep faith.
I am also reading music now. Learning music really is like learning a new language, and languages are not my strong suit. Thankfully I am persistent. My family says, more accurately that I am STUBBORN, and they are not wrong in that assessment.
Interestingly, I find that learning some pieces from a book of " easy" {relatively speaking, of course} classical works for piano helps me with reading music. I've discovered that the styles of music that I prefer to learn to play - Rock and roll, popular, and Broadway can be much harder to read and to play. I've found that, once I master one of these pieces, they are my go-to pieces when I need to play the piano, rather than practicing new material. The Beatles' Let It Be is a piece that I play/pray often, and it comforts me.
Hey you-- stop laughing! :) Yes, I am the smarty pants student who replaced your CD for the Music History class with one of my bootlegged Aerosmith CD's one April Fools' Day.
Thanks for the introduction to classical music. While I am still very much a rock and roll gal, learning music theory by playing parts of the classical masterworks has given me an appreciation for the genre. However, I'll always choose The Beatles and the Beach Boys over Beethoven and Bach.
Brian and I transformed one of our spare bedrooms into a studio for me. Like yours was in your East Hill home, my Music Room is my favorite room in the house. My piano, ukulele, Brian's guitar, and my two overflowing bookshelves are in this room. Additionally, I've added many souvenirs from trips taken and framed photos of loved ones to shelves in this room. It is a beautiful space, and so " Sarah" . :)
I know you are proud of me, and I also know that you understand why we'd not been a good piano teacher/ beginning piano student team. Students from your studio are amazing, but I feel that I might have disappointed you with my clumsy hands.
My teacher's first career was as a nurse, and she's done graduate-level work on using piano to help brain-injured people. My progress will be slower due to two things A} I'm a middle-aged adult beginning this incredible journey and B} clumsy hands due to my right and left-brain halves not communicating well. I'm okay with working slower-- and you know darn well that it has taken much personal growth over the years for me to admit that fact aloud.
I love you, Doc, and I miss you. Yet I know that *** somehow*** our souls will be reunited. Until then, I'll keep making music daily.
Love,
Sarah
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