My grandfather asked his children, "Who would like to learn to play a musical instrument?" As an immigrant farmer, he wanted to give his children an opportunity he did not have.
My mother, the youngest of seven, asked to play the violin.
My grandfather bought her lessons and a violin.
Though she never learned to master the violin.
The violin followed my mom as she grew up, married, and had children. As a child, I loved taking a chair into the hallway closet and peeking into the violin case where it hid. If my mother weren't at home, I would take it down and admire it. I never wanted to play it. Admiring its form was satisfying.
As the years went by, I snuck into the closet for a peek at the violin became less; it was as if a generation coming and going from one country to another sang from that silent instrument.
Then many Christmas' ago, when I went back to visit my mom, I took something from the hallway closet and noticed the violin wasn't in its place. I assumed my mom finally took it out of hiding and used it as a decorative form somewhere in the house. But no, oh no!
When I asked my mom where the violin was, she flippantly said, "I sold it."
"What?! When? To whom?" My mom said she couldn't remember. It had been a while ago.
Flustered. Frustrated. Sad described how I felt. Though I understood that Mom didn't mean malice, she was getting rid of things she felt nobody wanted or needed. How could she know I had admired it since I stole peeks?
When you are an antique dealer, you cannot be too sentimental. You have to love to sell more than you love to keep. Though my mom tops the cake of letting go, she sold her violin.
That is what I get for not saying I wanted it.
Later, when I visited my friend Shelley, I told her about the violin and how sad I was. Shelley had a funny look when she said she knew who had bought my mother's violin.
Shelley told me her mother collected and used old violins to decorate her home. Shelley told her husband Eric the story, and Eric went to Caroline's house (Shelley's mom) to tell her the violin story.
Caroline gave me my mom's violin.
Thank you, Caroline, for your generosity. Thank you, Eric, for relaying the message. Thank you, Shelley, for remembering and telling me. Thank you, Mom, for giving me the brocante bug and understanding the need to let things go. Thank you, Vo Leonardo, for encouraging my mother to play such an elegant instrument.
And thank you, violin, for your charming hold on me.
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