Wherever I go, there I am.

The following comes from my alternate ‘blog at http://www.violinist.com/blog/tajax/

May. 11, 2005 at 10:05 AM (MST)

On May 3, 2005 at exactly 9:41pm, my grandfather died. He was 85.

When he sent me off to learn the violin he would tell me how, as a young boy before the War, he would play hooky whenever it was time for music lessons.

As a result, he said, he was the only one among eight siblings who did not know how to play any instrument. He regretted it ever since, he would tell me, joking that all he knew to do was whistle.

Nevertheless, he had a very sharp ear. Even clear across the house, he could tell when I was playing off-key.

My appreciation for the violin deepened as I grew older, and I am thankful for my grandfather’s gift of music.

I owe everything to him, even the very violin that I now use. He brought it home from a visit to the US in 1987, even though I was still too small to use it.

In his last years, when he listened to me play, he would often tell me how glad he was that he brought the violin home.

On the plane trip, he said, he carried the instrument in his hands and never let go of it –not even during his brief stopover in Japan (which he felt very uncomfortable about, having been a POW during the War).

He would laugh as he recalled this, saying that, perhaps, fellow travelers thought he was a violinist. If only they knew!, he would say, and laugh again.

Thank you, Papa.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 15th, 2005 at 8:05 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.