"It's working! Wake up! Can you hear that?!"
My mother was running from room to room, gathering us out of our beds and herding us into the family room and it was true: the whole house was filled with music. For three years my father had spent his free evenings soldering tiny resistors, transistors, capacitors and other tiny gizmos onto green circuit boards, and when her skirt hems weren't being tugged by one of us five kids, she'd help him solder and sort - without, as it turned out, ever truly believing it would become a real, music-making organ. She also watched as he cut a massive 6'x4' hole in the drywall behind the organ so he could work on the electronics from the furnace room on the other side. Good sport.
My father was sliding back and forth along the bench reaching for pedals with his feet while pulling out stops and fingering the keys with his hands. My mother was beside herself. And singing her heart out.
What an amazing night!!
Countless nights thereafter his playing and her singing filled our home, no matter where we lived. That organ moved to Portugal and then back over the Atlantic to Miami, up to Montreal and cross-country to Calgary. Our new houses weren't homes until Dad started playing. Then it didn't matter where in the world we were, we were home.
If you have a moment, turn up the volume and click play. This is what home sounds like:
Does your dad have a copy of this (and/or others) to play to your mum when he visits? Hope so!
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No wonder you're such an amazing person.... you came from such amazing people!
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