We just finished the first Youth Orchestra concert in three years. Our young group, all dressed in white
and black, overcame first-time-on-stage nerves and played beautifully. While the older groups played
onstage we sat in the front row watching. I glanced over, now and then, to see our kids sitting on the
edge of the red velvet seats, faces turned upward, looking forward, projecting themselves onto that
stage as one of the big kids. When the lights came up at the end of the program and the applause died
down, one of our group came up to us, gave Paul and I a big hug and shyly held out a square envelope
that held a homemade card with a crayon colored Christmas tree. Tucked into it, a gift certificate to our
favorite bakery in town. His parents, arms full of younger siblings, smiled gratefully at this introduction
to orchestral performance. In a few minutes another mom came up and handed us each a bouquet of
deep red lilies wrapped in crinkly brown paper. She took my hand and told me that a piece I had
written for our group had moved her to tears. When we walked out of the hall, darkness was falling, as
was our first real snowfall.
My student, David, has been taking time out of his work day, once a week, to go into his young
granddaughter’s classroom and read to her class. He told me that Millie stands right next to him as he
reads and periodically strokes his arm or plants a kiss on his head. The other kids have taken to calling
him “Opa” which is his grandparent name. One afternoon after reading, Millie quietly asked him if it
was okay that the kids called him by her endearment, he said that it was. She then went on to question
if it meant the same thing to him when they said it as when she called him “Opa.” He told me that he
explained to her that when they called him that, it was just another name- but when she called him that,
it meant something completely different, it meant everything.
Last weekend we had our neighborhood holiday bash. We lit a fire outside and one in our fireplace
inside. People milled around with hands full of warm cider and hot dogs cooked in the fire. A young
group of musicians, mostly former repertory musicians, came with straw hats, bow ties clipped to their
shirts walking around with ukuleles and banjos singing holiday music. Our dogs raced around with
Paddy, the neighborhood canine mooch, hoping for bits of hot dogs to be dropped. There was not yet
snow on the ground making the temperature, hovering in the low thirties, feel even colder. Our
neighbors arrived, Pete helping Donna out of the car with her walker. She wanted to be by the outdoor
fire so we grabbed a couple of folding chairs and set them up near it. Someone quickly brought them
cider and some Christmas cookies. In conversing, I asked if, because of the physical challenges,
coming to the party was difficult. Sitting in the cold seat, her coat hunched up on her shoulders, the
bottom of her legs, pink from the cold, peeking out from under her pants, Donna looked up at me,
smiled and said that coming to this party, seeing all of her neighbors gathered, was the highlight of her
year.
Our son, Michael is coaching his daughter Emerson’s basketball team. In a phone conversation we
spoke about how he was able to find time in his busy schedule as a professor. He said that he had
attended a parent’s meeting where it was explained that they didn’t have enough coaches for the teams.
He sat quietly but realized that he had the power to change Emerson’s first experience in basketball. He
raised his hand. We’ve laughed about what practices are like with seven year old girls. He spends a lot
of time reminding them of which way to run and that they can’t carry the ball down the floor in their
little arms. Saturday was the first game of the season and we received photos of Emerson wearing her
new jersey- #5. Always my father’s number, always her father’s number.
After David finished telling me the story about Millie, it struck me that he might not be able to see the
full impact what he was doing for her would have on her life; those solemn conversations about what
calling him “Opa” means, the laughter, the pride-filled kisses on his bald head. I mentioned what a gift
he was giving her, and she him.
The gift, of course, is the gift of our time, our love, our focus. After all, just like learning the cello,
beauty is always excavated from the minutiae. Only after we brush off all the muck of life can we truly
see what we have in the palm of our hands.
And it may be only many years later can someone else see the light, the inspiration that may have come
from us.