Grandma’s Piano

The piano came from Virginia to Nevada by rail in the 1940s, and the piano fell from the train to the depot platform and landed on its back, cracking the hinged lid in two pieces lengthwise. My grandfather was an excellent cabinetmaker and he repaired it. Unless you knew where to look, you would never suspect it was damaged.

My mother learned to play, and she taught me to play on this same piano. I loved the old piano with its genuine ivory and ebony keys, its dark wood, and ancient sound. My family inherited the family piano when Grandma died, and I began teaching my daughter to play the very same day it arrived at my home.

Quickly my little girl, Sarah, was playing simple melodies with one finger, and I enjoyed hearing her practice while I did other projects around the house.

One night, after we’d all been asleep for a couple of hours, I heard the piano playing. I got up and walked to the top of the stairs where we had a view of the family room below. I could see Sarah plinking out a simple tune, and decided to leave her alone since she seemed so happy to be playing.

After returning to bed and sleeping until almost dawn I suddenly awoke with a shock. Sitting up in bed, my husband could sense my agitation and asked what it was.

I said “Sarah was playing ‘Red River Valley’ on the piano last night!”
He said “So?”.
I said “Sarah doesn’t KNOW ‘Red River Valley’, I haven’t TAUGHT her the ‘Red River Valley’!”

Neither of us could sleep, we talked and waited for Sarah to wake so we could ask her about the song. When she finally came downstairs I could hardly wait to ask how she knew that song.

“Sarah, I heard you playing a pretty song on the piano last night.”
“Yes mommy, I love it, the pretty lady taught me.”
“What pretty lady?”
“The pretty lady in white.” she said.

I felt dizzy, and went I to the living room in a kind of stunned disbelief, but I got out the old album with photos of my mother and grandmother, who both had gone to heaven years ago.

I showed Sarah the album, and as I slowly turned the pages, she was interested but not reacting at all. I realized that the pictures showed my grandmother and mother at younger ages, and as I neared the end of the album, where the newer pictures were, and where my grandmother would have been over 60 years old, Sarah jabbed excitedly at her picture and shouted “That’s the pretty lady!”.

I pretended that it was wonderful.

It made me want to scream, and cry, and laugh all at the same time! Was my grandmother really showing my daughter how to play her old and beloved piano? Emotions flooded over me like a waterfall. All day I moved mechanically through my tasks, absent-mindedly thinking only of the strange events the night before.

For several more nights, nothing happened at all. I began to think it was an interesting miracle. A once in a lifetime conversation piece that people would coo over, and secretly disbelieve.

Then one night, as I was comfortably sleeping, I heard “Red River Valley” and it sounded better than it had before. My heart raced as I climbed from the bed, noticing my husband doing the same, he commented that the playing sounded very good.

We walked to the top of the stairs and looked down at Sarah, and just before I called out that she was really getting better I noticed that she wasn’t touching the keys at all.

Submitted by Jeff Peterson