I didn’t want to play. I didn’t want to touch the keyboard but I must. I sat at the piano bench intertwining my hands together. A small tear floated: landing on my black dress. I drew my hair behind my ears sitting perched on the edge, ignoring the tears. I wished for home; I wished I were far away. Anywhere but this church. The ghostly white keys and black bars seemed odd to me. The notes printed in front of me seemed like a foreign language. I hadn’t played in weeks. My mom hadn’t noticed. I hadn’t even noticed. My dad would have noticed. Sending me directly into our study practicing “Hey Jude” until I completed it smoothly without mistakes. This is how it had always been. His love for piano stretched farther then mine. “Imagine”. That was his favorite. He would play “Imagine” by John Lennon on Saturday nights, the music that lulled me to sleep. I played as well. I was good. When I was little, I would assemble on my father’s lap, and we would preform a Beatles song together. I was in charge of the high notes; he, the low notes, and I would sing while he hummed. My mother would stop drying dishes, come in, sit on our big burgundy chair, and sing along. Piano…my father…my life, were gone. I would never again hear the harmonious notes slicing through the warm air of our house. My father, sick for a while, chose to evade the circumstance and relished living everyday to the fullest potential. Near the end of his life, he was in the hospital for weeks being treated for cancer. Eventually, he insisted on going home; it was the last time he was home. He called for me and demanded me to take him to the piano. We sat side-by-side on the solid-oak bench.
“One last time,” he required as I started the high notes of “Imagine”, and he joined in. His voice was gone, so I sang for him. After we were done, I led him back up to his room. He died that night. My mind wandered back to where I was now, in front of everyone whom my father had ever loved. The church grew still as I plucked a short note to make sure my hands still worked. The tears flowing from my eyes, I played.
“Imagine there’s no heaven…” my voice in rhythm with the notes, and although I was crying, my voice was clear: full of hope. I kept going, my melodic voice filling the steeple. The words of the song and my singing brought the comers to tears. Singing, I blocked out every antagonizing recollection of my father’s death, for this was for him. This song was our one last time.