brushfire"This, yes, this, it was always like this." -Stanley Koehler
REFLECTIONS OF AN EMPTY NESTER
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My father’s birthday is this week. If he were alive today, he would be turning 104. As much as we miss him — he was 95 when he died — there’s some comfort in knowing he couldn’t have lived forever. Among the many gifts he and my mother gave me as a child — a safe and loving home, opportunities to travel and experience other cultures, strong connections with our extended family, a love of literature — music was a daily presence. Tucked in the back of our house along one wall in my father’s small, cluttered, book-lined study was a mahogany Steinway & Sons upright piano. It was as old as he was, a gift for his mother the year he was born. He played regularly, usually Chopin, and it was, in fact, a Chopin waltz that inspired me to learn. My interest began as a means to gain my father’s attention. If I sat at the piano bench, I could lure him from the pile of papers to be corrected on his desk to sit next to me, teaching me the two-note song he wrote for my oldest sister, “Fife and Drum,” and later his more sophisticated two-handed composition, “Robin in the Grass,” a family classic. (Ask each of his 13 grandchildren, most of whom know the words — “Nose against the glass / See robin in the grass / Now he’s in the tree / Robin wait for me” — and many of whom can play it.) Formal lessons began when I was 8 and my father was my first teacher. Held Sundays after church, each lesson lasted an hour and included music theory, which I tended to tune out. How much or how often I practiced was up to me. In fact, my father discouraged my mother from reminding me. Music, in his view, was an escape, not a chore. By the time I was in ninth grade — and had mastered that Chopin waltz — my father decided he had taught me what he could and I began to study with Aron Pressman, a retired professor who came to the United States with the Russian Grand Opera in 1921 and founded Russian departments at two major universities. Mr. Pressman was a little intimidating at first, with his strong Russian accent and exacting sense of rhythm, but we developed a mutual fondness that transcended any illusion I possessed talent beyond the ability to perform a difficult Brahms piece competently at my high school music recital. He also established a rapport with my father, who drove me to my lesson each week, opting to doze on the sofa in the Pressmans’ sunny living room rather than drive the 10 minutes home and back again. He claimed it was his favorite hour of the week. I think I knew, even as a child, seated side by side at the piano bench with my father’s hands, as familiar as my own, next to mine on the keys, or when I was older in the car on the way to and from my lessons, those moments with my father were a gift. While I viewed this as his gift to me — as lasting a refrain in my life as the Chopin pieces I still play today — now I understand, as an adult and parent who cherishes the time I spend with my own children, the shared interest and time together also were my gift to him. This appeared in the March 28, 2019 issue of the Grosse Pointe News.
1 Comment
Jenny Yelle
6/26/2020 09:33:04 am
This article really touches my heart and is a perfect piece to have published on Father’s Day. Thank you, dear sister!
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Mary Anne BrushJournalist, fiction writer, wife and mother |