Remembering His Black Grand Piano

Gregory took his mom and his niece to Safir's Piano in Wilmette, Illinois. They were going to help him choose his new piano. He asked Gizelle, owner with her husband of Safir's, about pricing. Her reply was, "Don't ask about price. Play as many pianos as you want until you find the one that speaks to you. Then we will talk about price!"

He proceeded to audition several dozen pianos with his mother and niece jury chiming in. Bits of Bach and Chopin echoed through the otherwise empty two-floor showrooms of pianos of every size, every finish, and every maker." I hadn't realized that the sound pianos make could be as varied as there are human voice differences. Gregory called it "feeling the action of the piano."

Eventually, he found one that said, "Gregory, I love you!" Helen and Renee agreed. And they approached Gizelle. Because Gregory had sold so many of her pianos to his Interior Design customers, she made him an offer he could not refuse. She gave him the piano for her cost, and not only cost but what she paid for it five years earlier when she obtained it! 

The piano was a handbuilt, Kawai parlor grand piano, some five to six feet in length with a matte black finish. Gregory always made it his business to dust the piano carefully and to not leave any fingerprints on the lid. Also, unlike many a movie you may have seen, nothing was ever on top of the piano like a line of photographs of family or important people in one's life! "It just shouldn't be done," Gregory would say.

Twelve years later, when Gregory could no longer play the piano due to his Alzheimer's/ Dementia, he decided to sell it. He said, "If I can't play it as well as I used to, I would rather someone have it who can. I can always listen to my Chopin on my CDs." 

We advertised and found a young pianist, a composer who was looking for a piano having just moved to Chicago from Los Angeles. He came to the house several times to audition the piano and he too heard it say, "I love you!" His name was Michael, fitting! Gregory sold it to him for the same price he paid many years earlier. The piano came and left with love and then more love.

Last night as I was listening to some "meditative music" at bedtime, a piano piece came on. It took me back to my days of lying on our couch listening to Gregory practicing his various piano pieces, making "clams" as he called incorrectly struck notes, until the piece became a perfect part of his memory, played perfectly!

Tears began to fill my eyes and the sobs were just around the corner. Grief never leaves. One just becomes stronger and better able to carry the load. Great love means great grief and who would have it any other way? I wondered, "Where did his piano talent go? What is the piano's life like these days?" 

Gigi (the cat who Gregory had picked out) came to me, as she always does in my sad moments, and snuggled in under my arm and purred. It was her way of "petting me! I settled down and eventually fell soundly asleep. Emotions, tears, and sorrow but carried on the joy of love.

The Piano Ghost

Yesterday I had a minor surgical procedure to remove a benign lipoma from my neck. They grow quite commonly in my family and I have had a number of them removed over the years. 

DISCLAIMER and SPOILER 

(a photo of my wound is shown below)

But this is a story which takes place before my surgery. I woke on Friday at 4:00 am in preparation for being picked up by my housekeeper at 5:30 am to arrive at Evanston Hospital by 6:00 am. I am fortunate to have had Halina to take care of me for close to 40 years! She not only keeps my condo in shape but is there for me when I am ill or need special help.

When we arrived at the hospital, Halina dropped me off at the front door (COVID-19 style) and I entered the front entrance by myself and headed to the registration desk. There, mask in place, I was asked by the only other person in the lobby, mask in place as well, a number of questions about my COVID-19 experiences: no travel outside of Illinois, lack of temperature, lack of illness, lack of contact with others, etc.

The call I received from my doctor's team the day before surgery instructed me to then head towards the piano after I registered and take Elevator "B" to the third floor where I would see signs directing me to the Ambulatory Out-Patient Surgery Center. 

The piano was located in the lobby of a beautifully designed area which I guess was to make you feel good about being in a hospital. It soared two stories to the surrounding second-floor balcony and third-floor ceiling above that. The lobby was populated with luxurious, comfortable seating (socially distanced.) The lighting was soft and supposedly inviting, there was water bubbling out of a fountain on the wall into a stone basin surrounded by plants.

The lobby was NOT populated with people at that time of the morning and besides the person who welcomed me at the registration desk who did the COVID-19 interrogation (with a smile behind her mask, I could tell from the lilt in her voice,) I was all alone. All alone in this magnificent open air space with a black, baby grand piano ... with a black, baby grand piano which was playing itself. 

My first thought was not "How beautiful", or "How welcoming", or "What lovely music", but rather "Oh my, a piano playing itself,  there must be a ghost whom I cannot see playing it?" It actually was quite an eerie sight in a hospital which while it has as it's nature the saving of lives, most likely has also taken a number of them.

More eerie was the way the black, baby grand piano was playing itself ... without emotion, without feeling. Like someone had begun a metronome and instructed the piano to follow the timing EXACTLY as defined by the timekeeping machine. And the metronome was just a bit too slow for the music selected. It sounded like a young child who is accomplished at playing but who is too young to understand the emotions or feelings that must line any piece of music well played.

The piano was playing classical music, banging out one piece after another as it echoed through the soaring, empty lobby. After taking Elevator "B" to the Ambulatory Out Patient Surgery Center, its notes continued to reach me on the third floor with a drive and force that showed no feeling or emotion but rather commanding a strict adherence to a tempo set by a machine who only cared to make sure the piano kept up.

There I was the only one waiting, being a little too early even for the clerk to be behind her desk to sign me into the center. As I sat there, waiting for the hospital personnel to arrive, I tried to imagine what the Piano Ghost looked like. Male? Female? Young? Old? White? Black? Brown? or maybe, being a ghost, a shifting collection of all the above listed.

The experience did not cheer me up, did not make me feel welcome and/or comfortable, but did in some ways entertain me with its silly, inappropriate, metronomic, empty strands of Beethoven, Chopin, and others!

Therapy vs Just Do It!

As usual, my friend Kate continues her mission of making sure that the diagnosis of and living with Dementia/ Alzheimer's does NOT have to be a death sentence. In a recent post on her BLOG, she wonders why regular, everyday activities have to be considered "therapy" and if that doesn't over "medicalize" day to day life for those with the diagosis.

Here is her post. It opens in a new window. https://kateswaffer.com/2019/04/05/lets-all-go-into-therapy/

Below are my comments.

• • • • •

Kate,

I seem to always agree with your observations but then feel the need to "point/counterpoint" and to look at the "Gray" vs the "Black and White." I think that this tendency is a mirror to who I am when I look at most things in life! I will agree and give you that it is easier to refute, argue, fine tune, etc an idea or theory than it is to come up with the idea in the first place. So here's to you, my friend, keep up the important discussions.

• • •

I agree with avoiding "Medicalization" in dealing with Dementia/Alzheimer's and that has been one of my platforms in discussing Gregory and my "Alzheimer's: A Love Story." We spent our time on "Redefining Sense of Family, Home, and Relationship" NOT on "medicalizing" the twelve years we lived with Dementia.

In this post, you ask "we might need to stop imposing ‘therapy’ into all people living with dementia." Your comments on "therapy" caused me to wonder about the relationship between "therapy" and your recent discussions on framing Dementia/Alzheimer's as a "disability" in which it should be treated as a right of the person diagnosed with Dementia to have support in compensating for their faltering abilities

Trambling's quote that most do not actually enter therapy and/or drop out by the third session is a different issue and is most likely related to all the other care strategies for PLWA that need attention and "fixing;"  like caregiver training, safe environments, elder abuse, sufficient staffing, etc etc etc.

(People Living With Dementia  = Did I get that acronym correct? P.S. It is easier typing PLWD than it is People Living With Dementia, but I hate reducing people to acronyms ... but that is yet another "front" on with to debate "-)

Perhaps the answer to the statement "Let's all go into therapy!" might be as easy as when an activity is studied in depth and applied to help remediate and or compensate for abilities lost; physical, mental, cognitive, etc; it becomes a therapy. In other words, playing music is for a greater need and seeking a more important outcome than just for the purpose of listening. Perhaps for someone who has lost the ability to play the piano, like my Gregory did, the conscious study of possibilities and use of piano music can provide greater results: listening with headphones to a CD of piano music, going to a piano concert, sitting in front of a piano and "playing" with the keys, and more.
So I googled various types of "therapy." What I found is briefly discussed below. Perhaps those "everyday" activities about which you wonder "the need to be therapized or medicalized when need extra, special, and/or differentiated attention do come under the "medicalization" umbrella.

These are links (opens in a new window) to three sessions I had with Gregory at the piano at his memory care facility: Attempt 1: Encouragement    Attempt 2: He gets a little more involved. Attempt 3: In which he is frustrated.

I am not sure if the experience was a good one for Gregory or not. I wanted, at least, to try it to see if there would be a positive interaction with a "skill of the past" and perhpas worth while to "play" at the piano more often.

In the videos, you can see that he struggled with the experience and eventually became frustrated. But you can also see the "muscle memory" fighting to come back to his once experienced fingers and at the end of the second video, it seems like his fingers were almost "making love" to the piano keys he used to love so much and to the memory of being able to play at close to concert level.

It ended up that we never did "try again" before Gregory died. And while possibly painful for both of us, I am glad we did try at least once!

What is Music Therapy?

Music Therapy is the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program.

Music Therapy is an established health profession in which music is used within a therapeutic relationship to address physical, emotional, cognitive, and social needs of individuals. After assessing the strengths and needs of each client, the qualified music therapist provides the indicated treatment including creating, singing, moving to, and/or listening to music. Through musical involvement in the therapeutic context, clients' abilities are strengthened and transferred to other areas of their lives. Music therapy also provides avenues for communication that can be helpful to those who find it difficult to express themselves in words. Research in music therapy supports its effectiveness in many areas such as: overall physical rehabilitation and facilitating movement, increasing people's motivation to become engaged in their treatment, providing emotional support for clients and their families, and providing an outlet for expression of feelings.

https://www.musictherapy.org/about/musictherapy/

What is art therapy?

Art therapy is a mental health profession in which clients, facilitated by the art therapist, use art media, the creative process, and the resulting artwork to explore their feelings, reconcile emotional conflicts, foster self-awareness, manage behavior and addictions, develop social skills, improve reality orientation, reduce anxiety, and increase self-esteem. A goal in art therapy is to improve or restore a client’s functioning and his or her sense of personal well-being. Art therapy practice requires knowledge of visual art (drawing, painting, sculpture, and other art forms) and the creative process, as well as of human development, psychological, and counseling theories and techniques.

https://www.arttherapy.org/upload/whatisarttherapy.pdf

What is play therapy?

Play therapy can also be used to treat issues faced by teenagers and adults. By adulthood, most people have lost their ability to playfully explore themselves. Play therapists are trained to help adolescents, adults, and even the elderly relearn the values of play. Playful exploration has been proven to enhance both cognitive and physical behaviors, and there is a significant amount of research from the fields of neurophysiology and molecular biology that supports play therapy as a valid therapeutic technique for those past childhood. A growing number of organizations and experts are dedicated to play research and advocacy, believing that play is important for people of all ages.

Play has been shown to optimize learning, enhance relationships, and improve health and well-being. Adults and children engaged in a therapeutic alliance that focuses on play have an opportunity to choose from a variety of modalities such as movement (body play), sand play, dream play, nature play, social play, pretend (fantasy) play, creative play, storytelling, and vocal play. Play therapy may be used to address a variety of health challenges experienced by adults, especially if incorporated with other treatment modalities. One of the most significant benefits is that play can provide a comfortable and safe environment that may prompt an adult to approach more serious issues.

https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/types/play-therapy#Play%20Therapy%20for%20Adults