We used to walk around the corner with the kids to visit Bev's parents. At these family gatherings the kids had great times with their grandparents and visiting uncles, aunts and cousins as well. It was the 1980s and I was a fan of George Winston's new age piano instrumentals. So I made up a song in that style on my father-in-law Bryan's piano. For all these years it has had no name. It's just my piano song in F major. I would play it every time we visited. I probably wore people out with repeated playing (sorry All!) but I think Bryan liked it.
Now Bryan is gone, his life cut way too short by cancer. But the piano remains, a part of him left behind, right here in my own house for me to play whenever I want.
The other day I asked Bev to take some photos of me playing the piano. So she got her camera and I started playing. I played my nameless song in F. I stopped and turned to see Bev looking shaken and emotional. A few moments earlier, with the afternoon sun streaming in through the west windows, Bev had a vivid sense of her father Bryan standing in the room, listening and watching, drawn to the sound of his old piano and to my playing.
And there's something more. The photos Bev took show my hands reflected in the glossy black finish of the raised keyboard cover. As I look at these photos, I wonder whose hands those are in the reflection? It is as if someone else's hands play a dimly reflected piano, accompanying my own.
And now my song has a name.
The Accompanist (in F major)
