The Piano and a Message of Hope

My father was forty-five years old when I was born. Although he had always enjoyed perfect health, he worried that he would not live long enough to see his children grow up and have families of their own. It gnawed at him. And it didn’t help that his father had died at age seventy-eight.

Throughout my childhood, I was told to make the most of the time I had with my father, and I did. When he turned eighty, I was so relieved.

Just before his eighty-second birthday in 1998, my father announced he had to have surgery. There was a narrowing in his carotid artery, and he was at risk of having a stroke. We were told the surgery went well, but when I saw my father in the recovery room afterward, he looked stressed.

“Pop, what’s wrong?” I asked.

“The nurse said my blood pressure is high, and she told me to relax. How can I relax? She scared me half to death,” he said.

“Did the doctor say anything to you about it?”

“I haven’t seen the doctor, just the nurse.”

Dr. Engel was at the nurse’s station. I went over to him and said, “Excuse me, doctor. Why is my father’s blood pressure high?”

“It’s just slightly higher than normal,” he said. “Your father is going to be fine.”

“He doesn’t think so. When he woke from the surgery, the nurse told him his blood pressure was high. He’s scared. Will you please tell him he’s going to be okay? It’ll mean more coming from you.”

Dr. Engel went to my father and assured him that the surgery went well. When he heard he could go home in the morning, he relaxed and slept peacefully for several hours.

At 4:35 a.m., my father had a stroke. He was stabilized and transferred by ambulance from St. Agnes to the stroke center at the White Plains Hospital. It was the longest two-mile ride of our lives. Lying in the hospital bed, my father looked like he was at death’s door. Just six hours earlier, he had been sitting up, telling jokes, and looking forward to going home. Now he was weak, could barely talk, and his face looked sallow. The surgery that was supposed to prevent a stroke had caused one. I felt betrayed by Dr. Engel — and by God. It wasn’t God’s fault, of course, but nobody could tell me that then.

When I left my father’s room, Father Castellani was sitting in the waiting room with my mother. She had called and asked him to come to the hospital to pray with her. When they went to the chapel, my mother asked if I wanted to join them. I didn’t, but I went anyway.

We sat for a long time in the tiny chapel. I couldn’t stop thinking about my father, who was one floor above us. While Father Castellani and my mother prayed, I sat and stared at my hands. Silent. Nervous. Lost in thought. Suddenly, a man’s voice jogged me from my reverie. “Your father is going to be fine,” he said. It was almost a whisper, but there was no mistaking that it was a man’s voice.

Dr. Engel had said those exact words to me in the recovery room. I looked up, expecting to see him standing in the aisle, but no one was there. Father Castellani was the only man in the room. He was still seated next to my mother, praying. I was about to interrupt them to ask if they had heard what I heard, but the voice stopped me. “Let them be. I am here because of their prayers. Your father will be all right.”

Neither my mother nor Father Castellani looked up to see who was speaking to me. They couldn’t hear him. Why was I the only one would could her the voice? And where was it coming from? It was frightening, but at least the message was comforting. And, strangely enough, I wanted to hear more.

Ready to listen, I closed my eyes and concentrated on the gentle voice. “Your father’s health will improve. He will be sent home next week. But the incision will open, and he’ll go back into the hospital for five days. He’ll have physical therapy and then exercise at home. He’ll regain his speech and mobility. But his hand will take a year to heal.”

My father did get better. He was released from the hospital but rushed back that night when the incision popped open. There was blood everywhere. Five days later, he came home to stay. Physical therapy helped him regain much of his strength, and his speech returned to normal. But he hated physical therapy, and it hadn’t improved his left hand at all. So he did his own form of exercise at home instead. He walked every day until his limp was gone. And he played the beloved upright piano his father had given him when he was eight years old. He couldn’t play nearly as well as he used to — his left hand dragged on the keyboard, and it sometimes fell lifeless onto the keys — but he kept playing.

I watched my father as he learned to play the piano all over again. It broke my heart to see him struggling with it. He had always been an exceptional musician. One day, he got so upset that he slammed the fallboard shut, got up, and walked away. As he walked down the hallway to his bedroom, he mumbled, “I’ll never play the piano again.”

I bowed my head and prayed silently. “God, please help my father. The piano is his life. If he stops playing it now, I’m afraid it will kill him.”

After his walk the next day, he went to the piano, looked at it, and walked away. But the following day, he came back and began playing the scales with his left hand. He played slowly, but with determination. Soon, he grew tired and stopped. Each day, he played longer than the day before. As the days progressed, he played the scales faster and louder. The strength in his left hand was coming back. By summer, he was playing all the old songs he once played with his band. There were plenty of mistakes, but it sounded great to me. By fall, his hands were moving up and down the keyboard like lightning. The house was alive with music.

I will always be grateful for that extraordinary day in the chapel, and for my father’s full recovery. In fact, he lived long enough to see not only his children, but his grandchildren grow up. He even got to hold his first great-granddaughter in his arms. He played the piano every day and lived to be ninety-five years old.

by Lorrie Lush

copyright (c) 2023 Lorrie Lush. All rights reserved.