My mother and I had a very difficult relationship. I spent my childhood and adolescence attempting to escape her domination and overprotectiveness. Although I gave her a hard time – and she, me – I have positive memories of a very special time that I spent with my talented mother, memories of sharing music.
The Second World War broke out in 1939 when I was four years old, and families were temporarily fractured when husbands went off to war. Many wives took their children and moved back with their families or in-laws for the duration of the conflict. Neighbours left furniture with friends to store while they were away.
Pretty end tables that I was instructed not to touch, (but I did) appeared in our living room. My mother beamed when she was asked to store a friend’s piano. It fit well on our dining room wall. I remember the shiny gold lettering that spelled “Heintzman.”
It turned out that my mother, a wonderful pianist, had a trunk full of sheet music that my Granddad had given her. She told me that he bought her a piece of piano music every payday when she was a girl. My dad, an army reserve member, went to the local armoury every Monday, Wednesday and Friday during the war years. We ate at five p.m. sharp, and he was gone well before six o’clock. The moment he closed the front door, my mother was at the piano. Victor Herbert, Sigmund Romberg, Irving Berlin, and Johann Strauss, filled the rooms with thrilling sound. I don’t remember her happier than she was there, her body swaying to the melodic rhythms, nimble fingers flying over the keys. She played all evening, never stopping. She hummed and smiled the whole time. I sang and didn’t stop until my dad put his key in the front door lock and I was told to run to bed. Those were wonderful evenings.
My mother’s love for music extended to movie musicals and I was allowed to skip school and accompany her to matinees. I was sworn to secrecy. Although I loved my father, I knew that the consequences for me would be serious if I told. I didn’t tell.
In 1945 when the war ended, the lovely furniture disappeared from our living room.
One day the piano was gone, too.
There was never another piano in my mother’s home. Perhaps it was an
unaffordable luxury. Maybe my father’s jealousy of my mother’s talent made a
piano an impossibility. I’ll never know. Children don’t understand.
When I think of my mother, I generally remember her as a very unhappy, angry
woman. Now I remind myself of those special evenings together that led to my
enduring love of music, her most precious gift to me, her only child.
Submitted by J Alexander