Piano Max...

The first time I heard Pachelbel's Canon in D, we were planning the music for our wedding. It had to be the most calming song I had ever heard. It sounded strong, but calm. We did have our family walk in while it was playing.





When Max was in the PICU in his medically induced coma, while they were trying to figure out his metabolic disease, and prepare him for brain surgery, we played Pachelbel's Canon in D almost non-stop. We would watch his heart-rate change on the monitor while music was playing, he was more calm with the music on, so we played it to give that enormous room full of monitors and machines and our tiny little baby a sense of calm.


Yesterday was Max's music therapy. His therapist brought a keyboard to let him play piano. She played on the lower notes, and he put his hand on the higher notes to make music and of course, he sang along. I thought of getting up and getting the camera to take video, but I really just wanted to take it all in.

As she started playing Canon in D, he pulled his hands away from the keyboard, and clasped them at his chest. He got a very thoughtful, serious look on his face and just listened. Towards the end he put his hands back on the piano and started singing again. The therapist and he were playing along, and I had tears welling up in my eyes. I quickly wiped away the tears threatening to give away my super-strength facade.

I was remembering those days in the PICU, not knowing if we would bring our boy home, let alone allow myself to dream of this day. The days before neurosurgery, the head neurosurgeon who agreed to do Max's surgery had come in to meet with us. He believed in Max's neurologist, and when the rest of the neurosurgery team did not want to do the surgery, he said he would. He told us that the risks were high, but having over 200 seizures a day would not give him any sort of life worth living. He then went on to explain the surgery, and said that he could have some weakness on his right side, and won't have great fine motor skills.

"We won't see him playing the piano.", he said.

I thought then, who cares...if it will save his life, if it will give him a life, I don't care if he can play the piano.

But yesterday, as I watched him play along to the song that got him, got us all through that month in the PICU, with his right hand stretched fully out, singing out the lyrics none of us know, it was all too beautiful to take in. I don't think even a video could have captured the feeling in the room, and in this proud momma's heart.