By: Chelsie Rain Palima
Publication: Nyasia Carim

My throat stings as I breathe in the icy air of the winter, a cold lingering just a few breaths beyond the next. I could’ve sworn I heard my mother’s high-pitched voice, scolding me as a trickle of mucus dripped down my now red nose. I almost smiled at the memory, surely—she’d be wiping my nose right now, drawing out evidence of childish neglect left on it. Instead, I bring up my arm and use the sleeve of my sweater to wipe it, reminding me of what I’ve lost.

When I was younger, relatives from both sides of my parents would gather at our place, drawn to its spacious warmth. There is some sort of tradition that runs in the family, where my mother, every Christmas Eve, would sit before the piano during dinner, her fingers dancing along the monochrome keys of the instrument.

I would watch in awe as she did so. It was a silly dream of 5-year old me to become a pianist like she was. Maybe in a few years, I’d be the one playing before the piano during Christmas Eve dinner. I remember the way her face contorted in horror when I told her about it—screaming at me, saying that such a career won’t do me no good and that I should be more practical with my choices. Ever since then, I refused to speak with her when it concerns my passion and interests.

Even so, I never stopped watching her. Even as the gap between us widened, I continued to watch her in my seat at the table during Christmas dinner. Even as I stopped involving her in my dreams, I still found myself being mesmerized as she struck each chord on the keyboard. Each drop of every note her fingers released clinging to the hearts of her audience—our family. I wanted to believe that in at least one of those notes— she was trying to speak to me or give me a message, one I was desperate to decode. Perhaps, it was her way of showing she still cared, speaking in a language that only the two of us can understand—music.

As the clock continued to rotate, as the Christmas dinners kept on coming, the notes she released grew faint, fading into a whisper in stillness. Until there was nothing— it was in that  silence that I realized; the music had gone with her.

It had been years since I’ve stepped foot in the house I grew up in. The place was dusty and dull. Dull as in nothing vibrant remained; the fireplace was burnt out, the plates and glasses still inside the cabinet, as though waiting for hands that would never come. There were no loud thuds of hurried footsteps from upstairs where me and my cousins would play chase. The air held no flavor of lola’s food that she would prepare before every Noche buena— Haunting me the most was the empty sound of the hallways, not a single sound of a piano. No melodies were threaded into the fabric of holidays glee and warmth.

The instrument sat untouched, alone in the corner of the dining room. Its once-polished keys now dulled by a thin layer of dust, yellowing within time. I approached it slowly and carefully, as though fearing the fragile ambiance in my old home would shatter if I wasn’t too careful. I run my trembling fingers along the dusted keys, to which it responded—a ghost of its former voice, trembling like a sigh, as if it, too, remembered the songs it once carried and longed to sing them again. The note hung in the air for a while, until it dissolved with the memories that were made within the house. It reminded me once again of what I’ve lost.

My mother would always play the same songs over and over again every year at Christmas dinner. But one night, it was different. As I watched  her unusually trembling hands dance over the keys. The melody was unfamiliar, rather carrying a heavier weight and a slower rhythm than the songs she would usually play. Had she composed this melody by herself? I remember looking around the dining room to watch the expressions of the people around the table, but they have not seemed to have noticed even the slightest bit of change. Her face remained stoic, like always, her heart deciphering notes our ears could not. It was as if she was trying to fight a battle only she could hear.

My relatives applaud as the last note lingered in the air. My hands felt like they were stuck resting on my thighs, I couldn’t even smile as I watched her get up from the piano and join us to eat. I didn’t know that it would be the last time I would hear her play. I didn’t know it would be the last time I would feel Christmas as well.

I now stand where she stood, my hands travelling across the same path hers did on the keys of the piano. I played much more clumsily compared to her that’s for certain—the notes stumbled, almost hesitant, as if the instrument was longing for its previous owner. I felt my fingers getting heavier the longer I played, but at the same time, so did the piano respond to me—as if remembering her touch through mine. I looked ahead at the dusty mirror across the room. I did not see my mother, I did not see myself right now either.

I saw a little girl, laughing and giggling with her family around a dining table that was too familiar for me not to recognize. Sat in the air was the aroma of lola’s cooking, and in the background were hyper kids the same age as her.

The scene in the mirror faded as I was once again staring into my reflection. I didn’t see my mother. I felt my fingers move on their own as they slid across the keys of the piano, but the melody was fractured—incomplete rather, but it felt alive. My fingers carrying the weight of each note I played that was accompanied with the laughter in Christmas dinners, the loud thuds from playing chase upstairs, the sizzling oil by the kitchen area, and the still notes from the melody that my mother would play.

As I retrieve my hand from the piano, the final note lingered in the atmosphere, drifting off to find where it came from, connecting the fragile thread of the present to the past. I had a strange feeling in my stomach, it wasn’t the emptiness I had feared when I could no longer hear the melody my mother used to play—it was solitude.

It took everything within me to bring my feet to walk away. My mother—the familiar feeling of family and music had left with her. But even for a brief moment, I had brought it back, and with that, it was like I brought a piece of her back as well.

As I left the place that cradled my childhood, I knew the silence would haunt me. But as it does, I realized that the music never really left. It was within me, and as long as I carried it, so would she.