Personal Narrative Essay about Piano

I started piano almost as soon as I could walk, my tiny fingers plucking away at the notes like droplets of water falling on a tin roof. I loved playing, that feeling when I pushed down a key and a gentle vibration came back through the note, giving my hands a tingly feeling. That tingly feeling spread up my arms and around my body,  refreshing me with new energy and vigor to continue my piece. 

My grandmother, who played and taught at Elon College, became my role model and I wanted to be just like her. Whenever we would go to my grandparent’s house, I would sit beside her on the hard wooden piano bench as she would patiently watch my uncoordinated fingers stumble through my novice pieces. I found it difficult to express my emotions as she did. Her pieces always spun full of experiences and vehemence. When she would play, I could not help but watch as together, she and the piano told me stories of the frigid chills in a magical winter kingdom or the loud banging from Beethoven’s apartment as he struggled to hear his music. I would watch her long graceful fingers race across the keys as she gave everything she had to the piano, playing from the depths of her heart, completely unafraid to be vulnerable and exposed. She and the piano pulled my heart above the world, giving me a view I had never experienced before. As her nimble fingers gracefully sped down the keys to finish off the last note, I was flying above everything, seeing the world just like she did. 

Then I fell. I could only watch as I helplessly plummeted back to the ground, the wind wildly racing around me. My grandmother began to decline, and I could not stop it from happening as she moved from the piano bench to a hospital bed in the ICU. Alzheimer's moved in, taking her away piece by piece as she began referring to me as my mother and forgetting what I had told her five minutes before. During that time, I never understood what was happening.  But, I could feel myself declining along with her. I knew I was losing my love for the piano, and the worst part was, I knew I could not stop it. I hardly touched the instrument and when I did, I never felt the love for playing I had before. For a while, I felt like I was in a river, quickly moving towards a waterfall. But, when she came home, I fully understood I only had a few months left. I knew I had reached the top of the waterfall. For the first time, I truly felt like giving up, letting the waterfall pull me down. Everything inside told me to let go, everything but my grandmother. We were on an adventure together, flying thousands of miles through space on the verge of discovery and she was not letting go yet. I could feel her being pulled away from me and into the deep black hole where I would not be able to find her again. 

The evening before she died, I was at her house, working on homework in the kitchen until my mother left my grandmother’s room to talk to a nurse. I stood by the door, watching her for quite some time until I saw her eyes open and a smile peek across her face. My feet padded across the soft carpet as I walked in, over to the CD player, where it sat, perched on a shelf above her bed. There was a bin of thin shiny CDs next to the player, clacking together when I gently pulled out her favorite Frank Sinatra one.  She loved Frank Sinatra, maybe as much as she loved me, so I clicked through to her favorite song. I stood there for a while, holding her hand as ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ played in the background, giving the room life again. The tall lamp in the corner cast a soft glow across the bed, giving her the appearance of an angel. It was time for us to let go. Our journey together had been a lovely one, but we both knew she had given me enough wisdom to be successful wherever I wanted to fly next. 

When her soft blue eyes met mine, I understood why she took me so high, why she flew me to the moon and why I never accepted my emotions when playing. She showed me her view because I was so intertwined with becoming someone I could not. I never painted that view for myself, for I was never really in love. There was no such thing as falling out of love for something. I never fell out of love for piano, I fell out of the feeling I had confused for love.