The Gift

Made music with friends yesterday. The best way to make music. And there were friends there to listen, too. And two of my cousins showed up, and that was special. It felt like an old timey thing. We were people with guitars playing for people who wanted to listen, and we all had a good time. We sang together, we laughed together, we ate together, and when it was done, we hugged and vowed to do it again.

For me it was another step on my healing journey. Music was how I met my late wife, and music is a great way to remember her. I talked about her to strangers yesterday, and talked about grief with one of my cousins who is on a healing journey of her own. And I wondered at how lucky I was to have fallen in with such people, people who opened their arms to me, made room in their homes for me, and made room in their hearts for me. It’s some kind of magic.

It's nice to be part of that universal song, that song of love, to put music into the air, to make people smile. To hear people exclaim when someone plays a song they know, to hear people sing along, to laugh. And I hope when they left, they took a little of the joy with them, and it brightened their day, and maybe helped someone else to heal. I hope. Because in the end the best you can do with a gift is to give it, the rest is up to the recipient.