Article April 9, 2018 Issue

A piano lesson in the key of Life

Deb Hensley

I learned to play the piano on my mother’s Steinway in the living room. It was a big, beautiful piano with a grand and resonant sound, and she cherished it. Because we both deeply loved music, and she knew I would play it, she left the piano to me in her will.

When she passed, I struggled hard with a sense of loss and grief. So the idea that I would at least have her lovely piano to play gave me a certain degree of comfort. But a few weeks after our mother died, my sister called me and expressed a desire to have the piano.

I was stunned and didn’t know how to respond. The piano was, after all, supposed to go to me, and my sister knew it. Furthermore, I wanted it just as much as she did, or so I thought. We agreed to consider how to proceed and to talk again in a few days.

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