Gifts & Treasures

For where your treasure is, there your heart shall be also. -- Matthew 6:21

I miss my piano.

The one drawback to my new apartment? No piano. Really, no room to put a piano. So even if I had one it wouldn't really go with the whole aesthetic.

But, I miss it.

I miss the old, worn, upright in my living room with the chipped, yellowing keys. The one that is perpetually out of tune and whose pedal squeaks.

I miss being able to play it whenever I want. I miss hearing a song I like on the radio and going to the piano to bang it out. I miss playing the theme from "Legends of the Fall" whenever I can't think of anything else to play.

At mass this morning, the priest asked us what we treasured most in the world.

There are a lot of stock answers to that question, I think.

Friends. Family. Health. Independence.

After some thought, I've decided what I treasure most in the world is my piano.

Not the piano itself, or even my ability to play it, but what the fact that I can play the piano has meant to my life.

It's given me enormous confidence. It's something I can do well. People compliment me on how I play all the time. When I'm sitting at the piano, I never feel uncertain or unsure like I do in so many other areas of my life. In some ways, it's like the piano is my own version of an infant's security blanket. There's something familiar and comfortable about it -- something that's reassuring and calming.

It's given me tremendous joy. Some of my favorite times have been sitting at my piano singing "All I Ask of You" with Brendan at the top of our lungs. Or teaching my sister the harmony to some song and making her sing with me. Or showing my little cousins the six keys to play to magically produce the "Mission Impossible" theme song and watching their faces light up when they recognize the tune.

But more than that, it has given others tremendous joy. I can't tell you the number of people I have made cry. And all that means is that, in some small way, I have touched their hearts. My grandmothers, my parents, even total strangers. There are people who love to hear me play the piano because for whatever reason, it means something to them.

People call music a "gift". It is. To me, and to the other people in my life that I get to share it with. And being able to give people a gift like that is immensely rewarding. And being able to give that gift to myself is incredibly fulfilling.

And I wouldn't be in the position to share that gift without the piano sitting in my living room. Or without the years of piano lessons that my parents paid for. Or without the wonderful music teachers I have had over the years. And those are gifts that have been given to me.

So my greatest treasure? Music and the joy it has brought to my life and to the lives of others.

And when I have some extra money (and a bigger apartment), my first purchase will be a new piano.