You're Never Too Old

Wrinkles and red lipstick. Short curly white hair. "I spoke to you on the phone.", she said on my doorstep. "Where's the piano? I'm 88 years old and I don't have any time to waste."

She walked in the front door. "My name is Sunny and I intend to be. Where's the other students?"

"Over here!", called a female voice.

"Good." She nodded to the other women as she joined them. "Cheaper to take lessons with a group." Sunny turned to me.

"Okay." She extended her gnarled, arthritic fingers. " Make these fingers sound good."

Sound good they did. I knew how to tell Sunny how to move her hands so she could play just fine even with her arthritis, and her music soared. In just a few months, she was playing The Entertainer and Fur Elise, along with everybody else. Actually everybody else was playing along with Sunny.

"Okay girls, I waited a long time for this. You're in your forties and fifties. You may have time to dilly dally but not on my time. Practice and hang on, we're flying. "

Sunny stormed in one day "I just ran over a garbage can. Just didn't see it. I'm going to have to take taxi's now. So girls what do you think? Let's do duets.That way no one will know who is making the mistakes."

Music, fun, chords, flying fingers, even arthritic ones. Four years passed and Sunny showed up very sad one day. "My daughter says I have to move to San Diego,near her. Says it's too hard to run over here if something goes wrong."

"NOOO!", ran through the group. "You deliver meals on wheels 3 times a week."

"You run the Senior Gift Shop!"

Sunny moved. She joined the group on the phone. "Wifi isn't any good here. I hate this assisted living. No on talks to you except the staff, and they're paid to. Let' play."

Sunny went to private lessons because she needed someone to hold the phone for her, and it was unpredictable when she could get someone. Sometimes weeks would go by. She started each lesson the same."I sound awful. You don't want to hear me."

Every week I coaxed her along. She ended every lesson paying her Mozart and Chopin Waltz. "I can't believe you got me to do that," I could hear her smile.

One day her daughter called me. "We have to stop Sunny's lessons. She doesn't speak . She needs Memory Lane."

"No she doesn't!" I protested. "Come see her lesson!"

It was arranged. As usual, Sunny started as she always did, "I sound awful. You don't want to hear me."

As usual, Sunny was playing her Mozart and Chopin. Crying,her daughter threw her arms around her mother.

"I'm so sorry!! We'll fix it!"

She moved Sunny into her house. Sunny arranged a neighborhood card game. I feel privedged every time I am lucky enough to give her a lesson. She is now 98. "Don't you tell me it sounds good. You should know better by now. See you next week. Maybe."