How A Piano and Family Softened Conflict And Finality

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I was in the kitchen listening to the piano fill the one-story house, the notes bouncing off the wood floors, the wood wall, and high ceilings. My family and I had just flown in from out of town for my father-in-law’s memorial. Our plane taxied us straight into some conflict between family living nearby, so we were steadying ourselves for the week ahead.

My son walked into our Airbnb home for the week and went straight for the piano in the corner of the living room.

First, there was “Everglow” by Coldplay, then “City of Stars” from the movie La La Land. Then “Für Elise” by Beethoven. The sound was meant for a room like the one he was in, bouncing and expanding from the hard surfaces, much like love does when it hits you in the bones. It expands to reach outside of you, into the future, and into others.

This music expanded into us as we tried to fathom the memorial ahead and what it meant.

I recalled the times when my son learned to play these songs, some by ear, and how he’d played them over the years. Gratitude welled in me that he played them for us now as we settled into the place and unpacked our groceries from the grocery run we’d just made.

Then the song came.

The only song that kills me, but in a good way. It blooms all the positive emotions in me, all the nostalgia and gratitude, all the intense love for my children and the beautiful world, and they expand in me en masse and spill over to my future even though I’m sitting right there in the present. I sit at my death, looking down on myself, and hear this song send me off as it tells the others in the room that I understood what a gift life was.

“Nuvole Bianche,” by Ludovico Einaudi.

I closed the fridge door, walked to the bedroom, and wept. I’m a lifelong weeper. I used to call it The Gift of Tears. I meant it as sort of a joke and sort of not. Now that I’m older and understand myself better, I know it is a gift.

Soon the song was over but the week ahead had just begun, and it was up to us to see it through, as a team. My husband would have the bulk of the difficulty. This was his father’s memorial, his conflicted relatives, his role as a mediator of sorts between them. The rest of us — our two sons and I — were there as support, but also to experience whatever would come.

What came?

A week of surprises.

It was a string of love-gifts one after the other, given by the extended family who’d flown in from around the country for the memorial. They came because to be there for a memorial is what one does, but also, it’s what they wanted — to pay homage to a man who was an integral part of this large group.

More than that, this family deftly and quietly danced between the two contending parties, supporting both, speaking no unkindness, maintaining diplomacy, being wise and true. Being who you’d suddenly want to be if you hadn’t known this was an option in life. You’d have been inspired, which is the best of what we do for each other. These cousins, this aunt — they inspired us every day for a week.

It was a lesson to watch how these folks were handling the situation. I figured they felt they had no choice but to maintain neutrality. They did have a choice, and they chose no gossip, no trying to escalate — only support and acceptance.

I loved them far more than I could tell them, but maybe love doesn’t have an ample description. Maybe it extends beyond that, like that piano song.

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At the memorial, there was a sea of attendees. My father-in-law knew many people and touched many lives. He was one of the most prolific livers I’ve known. Did he take what he wanted? He did. He was larger than life in many ways — in action, success, knowledge, interests, charity, and giving back — and in ego. But he was a sensitive observer, too. He offered gentle wisdom to someone when he saw an opening for it. He taught folks how to perform orthopedic surgery, fish, wrestle, garden, hunt, identify birds — I don’t have all day to list everything.

If you walked away uninspired from the tributes the speakers gave, you probably had earplugs in your ears. The story people told about him was one of industriousness and passion. Grit, as they call it today. Even at his memorial, his insistence that if he can do it, you can do it, was running its usual course. I heard his message — I didn’t have earplugs in — and I’m now six days into finally doing something I’ve been putting off.

I think back on that week and my son’s gift of music to us. I think about the struggles folks can have with each other. I think about how love can be as chivalrous as it is gentle. And I think about our finite lives. Where does it all leave me? Is it interconnected?

Maybe.

That piano song lifting off my son’s earnest fingers has a main message for me — that I’ve loved. It says life is complex, with both the good and the unfortunate, and love and connection are what I’ll remember.

Parenting for me was an easy love project because I had the energy and time to do it — a fortunate gift, I know. It allowed me plenty of space to love, but sometimes loving is a challenge. The humanity stars aren’t always aligned to create an optimal situation in which to love. In these instances, our choice is to dance the love dance or not dance it — be it with an individual or within a circumstance of group conflict.

My father-in-law told whoever he met they could do hard things. He affirmed they had made a solid start on their goal, or they had what it took. I think this extends to loving when loving is tricky.

Love doesn’t require that the situation be cozy. Sometimes just listening is the most loving thing for folks who aren’t acting warm and fuzzy. Loving someone doesn’t mean I agree with them. Sometimes it simply means I let them know I hear them while we sit beside a lovely lake — and I don’t push them in.

Oh life, you funky thing.

I hope to attend my memorial someday. I want to sit in the back of the room, an invisible creature, while that piano song plays, and nod to those who came. Hopefully, one person will stand up and say, “She knew she had one life, so she tried to do what was hard.”

I hope it will be true.

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Hope you're well, friends.