My mother’s baby grand piano1 sat in the southwest corner of the living room at 818, where I grew up.
She taught me the basics: where middle C is, how to hold my hands over the keyboard, that sort of thing. A lifetime later, I know that I could have paid more attention. But I’m glad to have learned what I did.
Somewhere along the line she had me learn to play “D’ye ken John Peel?” / “Do you know John Peel?” — a surprise for my father. It was supposed to be a secret. So, of course, as soon as he came home, I blurted out what I was learning.
Learning impulse control is a work in progress. But I am getting better.
The baby grand went with my parents and me when we moved to 1010. It traveled with them again when they moved to the farmstead my mother grew up on.
Then, around the time taking care of my mother became more difficult for my father, my folks donated it to the nearby town’s nursing home. That’s where both my parents eventually died, and that’s another topic.
Fast-forward a couple decades.
All Things End
Our second-oldest daughter — she and our son-in-law live on the farmstead now, running their sawmill — and that’s yet another topic.
Where was I?
Our second-oldest daughter called last Monday, talking first with my wife: which is par for the course. Those two generally have quite a bit to talk about.
After a while our third-oldest daughter brought me the phone, so that the second-oldest could talk with me.
This isn’t routine, but isn’t unheard of either. Although we’re not the model family of 1950s sitcoms, we do communicate.
Anyway, first thing she — second-oldest daughter this is — said was something like ‘all things end’. Her tone was upbeat, but the words had me wondering what had happened. And who it had happened to.
Within a minute, she’d filled me in on the situation. Nobody had died, been injured, or taken ill. Right there, that’s good news.
The topic of conversation was my mother’s piano. Seems it’s upwards of a hundred years old. That would probably make it my grandmother’s piano first, then my mother’s.
Pianos, our daughter told me, don’t last forever.2 The baby grand my folks donated to the nursing home had gotten to the point where maintenance won’t keep it going.
Having the parts that make it a piano replaced would be possible. But the job would cost more than a new piano, so that wasn’t a reasonable option.
All this was interesting, but I still didn’t know why our daughter was talking with me about the situation. It’d been something like two decades since the piano had passed from the family’s hands to the nursing home’s.
Decisions
Folks at the nursing home had given our daughter and son-in-law first refusal for taking the thing off their hands. I’m sure they didn’t put it that way.
This was back in December. Our daughter had meant to bring this up earlier, but — that household has a lot on their plate.
At any rate, they’d given the part of the family living in North Dakota an opportunity to reclaim the piano. Our daughter was talking with me to put me in the loop.
Building a new piano inside the shell of the old one didn’t make sense. Not to me. Even if we could afford it, I saw no point. What we’d end up with would be the shell of the piano I knew from childhood up, with a new piano inside.
We can, however, have pieces of the piano’s case, or whatever the outside’s called, after whoever’s doing the removal gets the inside mechanisms out.
Our daughter and son-in-law want the legs and top. They will try reassembling them as an end table. She said that ‘of course’, they’re keeping the piece above the keyboard that says “Steinway”.
I suggested that the outer shell, the part that’s straight on one side and curved on the other, might make the outside of a bookcase. I’ve been wanting one for the north room, where I spend most of my time these days. It’d be about five feet wide and five tall, which should let it fit against the wall near my desk.
Whether or not that works out, I’m glad she called and told us what the situation was.
Gratitude and Saying Goodby
I was and am glad that folks at the nursing home had appreciated the piano’s presence, and the music folks made with it.
I had ‘said goodby’ to the piano by playing a few lines of one of my favorite pieces — J. S. Bach’s Prelude in C Major — where it sat in a small room near the entrance on the west side. That’s still a good memory. A happy one.
Meanwhile: New Windows and the News
I’d intended to write more this week.
But we finally got new windows put in the north room and a couple other places. My desk is in the north room. Having minor construction work happening nearby is distracting.
It’s good news, though, since when the new windows are closed, they don’t let the wind through. Neither did the old ones, mostly, but wind got around them anyway.
We’d been making do by keeping plastic sheeting over the things. Although the window-plus-sheet-plastic arrangement was fairly effective, and the plastic transparent, the sheeting was thick and wrinkled.
I’ve been enjoying having an uncrumpled view.
The armed conflict that started last Sunday hasn’t helped me concentrate, either.
I may talk about that, if and when I have something useful to say. Basically, at this point, I see its importance as being much greater than a new set of windows somewhere in the Upper Midwest, and probably one of this year’s more significant developments.
A Piano, Music, Life, and a Sense of Scale
I’m a very emotional man. I liked my mother’s piano. There are a great many good memories involving it, and the music coming from it — more or less fine, depending on the player’s skill.
But I’m not particularly upset that it will no longer be a musical instrument: and am glad that folks could enjoy it during the last couple decades.
Having acquired a sense of scale helps.
Something from Sirach popped onto my mind’s front desk while I was writing this. I’ve quoted it before.
“When mortals finish, they are only beginning,
and when they stop they are still bewildered.
What are mortals? What are they worth?
What is good in them, and what is evil?
The number of their days seems great
if it reaches a hundred years.
Like a drop of water from the sea and a grain of sand,
so are these few years among the days of eternity.
That is why the Lord is patient with them
and pours out his mercy on them.”
(Sirach 18:7–11) [emphasis mine]
As I see it, our new windows, the old piano, nations, history and humanity fall somewhere between a grain of sand and the universe in significance.
Each, to a greater or lesser extent, matters.
I’m glad that I have good memories associated with that piano, and profoundly grateful that God is patient; with me and with all of us. I’ve talked about that before:
- “Good Night, Boots” (June 14, 2025 )
- “Remembering a House I Grew Up in, and Gratitude” (November 22, 2025)
- “‘We Will Come After You’, Being Careful, and Truth” (August 17, 2024)
- “Veterans Day, 2023: A Few Minutes’ Worth” (November 11, 2023)
- “Remembering 9/11: Death, Daft Ideas and a Tree” (September 11, 2021)
- “How long does a grand piano last?”
Stephen Reed, Blog, M. Steinert &’ Sons (August 1, 2022)
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