Lloyd Goldstein

I wonder how the operation went. They say you were discharged, I am sorry to have missed you. You shared your smile and your enthusiasm with me. After a while you told me that you are a hospice volunteer and that you have shared the 11th hour with more than a few patients, and that you find fulfillment and peace in that. You tell me you are ready if it is time, and just as ready if it is not. You became an LPN at the age of 54, began your studies at 52, the age I am this year. You are full of gratitude, appreciation and love. It is my privilege and honor to spend some minutes with you and your fine husband. Even your quiet husband became excited and talkative out in the hall as I was leaving. We are so blessed to be able to share time together. Viva la musica!

She is young, no not quite so young, but joyful and bright and free. She weaves a melody of light around us in the rehab unit. It is the end of my day, I am a bit tired, but I realize immediately that I am blessed to have continued these few steps forward, this one more visit. Her speech is a little hampered, and at first I am not sure if there may be some kind of handicap, but over the course of our visit I am treated to a beautiful mind that consciously chooses joy in every instant, one that shares wholeheartedly and unabashedly. She loves my music and she invites me back next week when I am here in this place again. I could not be more blessed, more privileged, to meet and share space and time with this being of love and joy. I know that she knows pain, and I know that she understands much more of suffering than seems evident, yet she chooses joy and love as her vehicle. Her melody is wide and bright and fills this room and beyond. I would love to shine one tenth so bright.

Today I played for 2 sisters, one pregnant, one not, and they said “This is is Art” and “We won’t forget this.” For a woman just out of surgery, “I am just out of surgery, so I hope you won’t mind if I fall asleep.” And she slept almost immediately after I began to play. Her husband shook my hand warmly. For a woman with leg pain and nausea, sitting in her chair, smiling as she is able. For a man who requested ‘Amazing Grace’ and then invited me to join his family in prayer. For a daughter who asked me to put her Mom to sleep, and she did. For a man who also badly needed sleep, couldn’t quite make it, but managed a little smile anyway, and his wife who said, “I have to take a picture of this.” For a man and his wife in Rehab, elegant, intelligent, warm and kind, who said, “Not everyone can say they have had their own private concert in the hospital.” And their roommate who not only smiled when I never thought he would, but clapped enthusiastically between pieces.

Sisters together, one pregnant, one not. One sitting up close on the bed, one in the chair just behind, both open and willing to listen, with smiles on. As I play I can feel them sigh. Their english is a little broken, but they say things like. “When you play I can feel it here.” She is placing her hand over her upper chest. “This is an Art. So many thoughts come through, I am thinking so many things. I think you are a good man. When you speak I feel peace. The way you play and speak, I feel free to talk, to express myself. Please come back to visit us again when you are here.”