When I was a little girl, my great-grandmother thought I could play the piano. She loved to call out her favorite hymns and warble along while I plunked them out on the old upright dinosaur that graced the "parlor" of my grandma's house. She would sit and rock herself back and forth to the rhythm of the old familiar tunes and I would sweat bullets and bite my lip and try not to disappoint her too much. She rarely complained, and seemed to enjoy the company. Sometimes she would tell me how much better I sounded than the last time...God bless her.

Women who were born shortly after the end of the Civil war, as she was, usually had few options. Pretty much they had to marry, and she did, twice. Her first husband died while out west panning for gold. She was brokenhearted, but soon married a widower who had a parcel of children of his own. My grandmother was the oldest girl of that second marriage.


My great-grandma was a midwife, and she had played the piano and organ in several small churches, so how she ever tolerated the discordant mess that I was filling the air with, I'll never know. My father lived with her in his late teens, and he often went along on her "deliveries" to keep the men folk occupied while she and the mama to be did the real work.

The really cool thing is, I'll see her again. I just wonder if she'll be rocking and singing along to her favorite hymns. I had better start practicing.