teaching little fingers to play

Our piano is being tuned right now. We have two sets of little hands that tickle the ivories daily to prepare for their lesson on Friday. This thirty-five year old piano has not been tuned for quite awhile, and only as of late has the pitch of each note been important to my oldest musician. The pitch was fine before. Before what? Our piano's pitch was fine until she heard with her own hands and ears the music of a piano that was actually in tune. Now here I am investing in every opportunity to make it right.

Making wrongs right: powerful business, powerful yet - unpopular. Two of the most difficult words that I can ever utter are "I'm sorry". Why is that? The pain in such humility, right? What am I so afraid I will lose when I admit wrong doing? A relationship is not built on being right - but on love. What tune did I hear that made me think otherwise? And when did I realize it was off pitch?

It was years ago. We were newly married. Ahhh those tender moments of learning what it meant to become one. So much of me was still me - apart from my spouse. I was mad at him for something - probably trite and selfish. I ranted and raved...can you hear me? Yeah, I know you can. And then I slammed a door so hard it could have cracked. For any movie scene that demanded an ugly lovers' quarrel, I would have been magnificent - but for life with this man that I love, I had been most horrid.

I sat there on the bed waiting for the response. He would come in any moment, right? He would come in - yell back and this passionate release would continue to ensue until I had my moment of ....of what? I sat there. And sat there. And then I laid back on the bed waiting. And waiting. He did not follow me. Where was he? This anger I had built up was diffusing, and I was feeling more and more...unvalidated. I waited as long as I could, because to come out of that room was to admit, in some way, a weakness for him. Weakness for him: to me this was a negative.

The house was silent. Where was he? I pretended not to look as I went from room to room pretending to straighten up. You know how that goes. And then, I found him. He was lying on the bed in the guest room, and it looked as if he had been crying. (Granted he MIGHT have had something in his eye. I'm not saying you WERE crying, my husband. It just looked like you were.) I stood there in the doorway silent, just looking at him trying to figure out this foreign fighting strategy. I walked over to him because his silence concerned me. More weakness displayed. He laid there, looked over at me with such compassion - such weakness - I broke. He took my hand, and in a voice of tenderness, of almost pleading and such humility he said, "There will be no slamming of doors in our house."
What could I say?

"I'm sorry, " was all I could muster through my tears. He sat up and hugged me closely. I am his, and he is mine, and we are one life for the sake of the other no matter what. He forgave me without words, because the sound of submission was too sweet to interrupt.

I might think I know the way I want my life to go, the way I want to be defined, but I realize at 41, I need to listen closely to what I call strength - to what I call solid ground - what I call gain and what I perceive as loss - because I have been off key before, and I never even knew it.

This house is not so empty anymore- not so quiet in the moments of conflict when conflict does ensue. However, my heart has learned a new song with which to fill it moment by moment, and I am ever aware that I am teaching little fingers to play.

"Blessed are the peacemakers..." Matthew 5:9