Now that pandemic restrictions are lifting, I was able to attend the memorial for one of my husband’s aunts. For privacy’s sake I’ll call her Nelly. Early in our marriage, Nelly’s home was where we joined innumerable relatives to celebrate every Thanksgiving. My children called it going to the White House as if we were visiting the president because it was an impressive Victorian set on a wide lawn populated by mature shade trees. In the center of the foyer was a magnificent, curved staircase Scarlett O’Hara would have been proud to descend. Although the architecture was elegant and the home richly appointed with family antiques and foreign curiosities, it was comfortably lived in, and my children and myriad cousins played hide and seek from bedrooms to basement. Aunt Nelly was at the center of it all, the consummate hostess, warm, welcoming, and always glad to see you.
We moved out West. Moved back East. Our children grew up, and Nelly, at more than ninety was nearly the last of her generation to pass away. All to say, it was a long time since I’d last been to the big white house. But as we drove up the drive, the cousins waved and grinned from the expansive front porch as if it hadn’t been almost thirty years since we’d been to their childhood home.
After giving the first hugs I’ve given since Covid, I asked if I could go inside and look around. In the foyer was the small leather elephant my toddlers had tried to ride. To the left was the dining room readied to serve the others who would be coming after the memorial. To the right was the sunroom with the couch upholstered in salmon velvet, and above it the oriental painting that had always hung there. Perpendicular to the couch was the piano my children and their cousins banged on. Or was it the same piano? I’d never noticed the intricate fretwork on the upper panel. Maybe it was always hidden behind sheet music. And I’d never noticed it’s golden, burled finish. But the bench that held three cousins at a time wasn’t made from the same wood.
I circled the rest of the house, strolling through the living room furnished with two of the longest sofas I’ve ever seen, but then Aunt Nelly raised eight children. Through the cozy breakfast room, the tiny kitchen, the pantry, back through the dining room, and onto the porch. But my mind circled too, back to the piano.
When I stepped onto the porch, I asked the cousins, “Is that the same piano in the sunroom?”
The oldest sister answered, “No, that’s Janis Joplin’s piano.”
My heart did a flip, and my jaw dropped. “How did you get Janis Joplin’s piano?”
“Someone gave it to my brother.”
We were given a ride to the cemetery by the brother gifted the piano and heard the rest of the story. It concluded with the fact that the sound board was broken, so you couldn’t actually play it.
I wondered if that was because of all the blues Janis pounded out of the keyboard, or because it was just old. After all I was a freshman in high school when I first heard her sing, “Piece of my Heart” on the Cheap Thrills album. Could that be over fifty years ago?
At the graveside, people told stories of how Aunt Nelly was someone who listened, really listened, who invited you into the family even if you weren’t officially related. A man I didn’t recognize said Nelly helped him get into Yale simply by encouraging him to say what he really wanted. He was part of the other side of the family I learned she hosted every Christmas. The funeral director, also counted her a friend, saying she was a woman who knew how to get things done for the community. And someone recalled Nelly as always saying, “Isn’t that wonderful!”
When we got back from the cemetery, I asked my husband to take a picture of me in front of Janis Joplin’s piano. It was still incredible that I was in the same room with an instrument that had been played by a Woodstock icon. And yet I don’t know if young people today even know who Janis was. In the big picture, I suppose it was a cheap thrill to stand beside her piano that can no longer make music.
But here’s the thing, this isn’t really a story about Aunt Nelly or Janis Joplin’s mute piano. It’s a story of the life-long resolution of my own insecurities. I confess, when I first came to Aunt Nelly’s home, I perched on one of those long couches as a young stay-at-home mom, surrounded by people whose professional accomplishments and exotic lives made my ordinary existence feel inferior. But in mortality’s clarity, it’s obvious, what really matters is to love and be loved. That sounds cliché. But clichés are true.
At the end of the memorial, Aunt Nelly’s ashes were placed in a grave next to her husband’s, and as I turned to leave, I saw one of the Christmas relatives, scattering rose petals on top of all that remained of dear Aunt Nelly who I imagine would have said, “Isn’t that wonderful!”
“We have a special role in his (God’s) plan. He calls us to life by the message of truth so that we will show the rest of his creatures his goodness and love.”
James 1:18 ( The Voice)
Cover photo by Vishnu R Nair
I read every story that you write. I love them all since they are very diverse. I always want to write a comment but sometimes find it hard to think of something to say. I do want you to know that I enjoy your writing and will continue to read, read, read, stories written by Ann C. Averill Author.