Chopin and my Great Aunt

Taking Time

I remember writing my Great Aunt BeeBee every week, when she was nearing a century of living and had moved into a nursing home. She had left the house she’d lived her entire life, had grown up in with her mother and father, sisters and brothers, and since she never married, remained there mostly alone for the next nine decades. But sometime in her early to mid 90s, her health declined and she spent her remaining years at a Nursing Home called Guardian Care. And somewhere in that urgency of her move, as a young teenager I started to write her every Sunday night.

She was a magnificent presence in my life: a piano teacher, a bible scholar as only staunch Presbyterians could be, a genuine and mysterious old person with wrinkles and a curved spine, and a keeper of M&M in the candy jar in the top compartment of the old oak antique refrigerator, referred to as the icebox. BeeBee, as she was known to all family, would lay down in the back bedroom every afternoon for a nap, had a picture of a very young Queen Elizabeth on her living room wall (a tie to her Cornwall, England roots) and her garden was full of Crepe Myrtle, Sweet Peas, Camellias and Richard, her old and tired black gardener.

On our visits to Henderson, to see my mother’s family, my mother's sister, would walk through her adjoining back yard to see her father (my grandfather), who was BeeBee’s younger brother by ten years. After checking on her father, she'd go on to the next house to check on her Aunt BeeBee.  This was a morning ritual.  So naturally every morning as our day began on these visits south, My Mom would join her sister (my aunt) and Carol (my sister) and I would tag along on the short stroll up to the next house to visit or check-in on BeeBee. 

It was less than a football field away, but on our visits to Henderson, North Carolina, going to BeeBee’s in the morning was like going back in time. It was fascinating to enter into her home, and to smell, and to look, and to listen.We’d spend twenty minutes or so there every morning, hearing about BeeBee's day, listening to family updates she’d received in her mailbox, making sure she was stocked from the grocery store, and a bit of world affairs and local news, and then we’d leave. She would take a nap every afternoon before teaching piano to neighboring children after their school day ended, her source of income and only joined my grandfather for the occasional Sunday noontime meal or family gathering. 

BeeBee was simply what we called her, but her name was Bertha Mabel Bunn. She died in March 1980, four days after her 99^th birthday. I was a freshmen in college. She always said: “March was the worst month of the year, because you were waiting for Spring. If you could live through March, you would make it another year.”

Writing those letters every Sunday night to BeeBee when I was a teenager, was incredibly important to me, there was a sense of urgency in it, and yet I anticipated no reply. It connected me to her and it felt as though I was just doing a bit more to keep her connected during her final years at Guardian Care, just one more family member feeding her mailbox, of news and activities. 

Sure enough, once BeeBee moved into Guardian Care and started having three “square meals” a day, she got stronger and thrived for a few years in her wheelchair, heading down to the community room and visiting and making new friends. I remember on one visit south, I took my piano music and I played Chopin: Waltz #1 In E Flat, Op. 18, "Grande Valse Brillante" to her and a bunch of other residents. For a 16 year old to be playing Chopin was a worthy afternoon recital, and I had been working all year with my own piano teacher back on Long Island on it.

 Chopin Waltz #1 in E Flat, Op. 18 Grande Valse Brillante

My sister and I always played the piano for BeeBee during our visits to North Carolina, usually a special afternoon visit in the living room where she taught music lessons, She'd get up early from her naps, to listen to us play. Her living room was adjacent to her sitting room, where our morning visits would occur while Queen Elizabeth watched over us, unless we sat in her dining room near the icebox, because perhaps we were having a piece of cake or potato pasties she'd made. 

BeeBee loved to hear our musical progress. So years later, in the sunny Community Room of Guardian Care, I plowed through Chopin, and BeeBee praised my ambition to take on Chopin, and gently reminded me to slow down and reflect, to take time with the music, in order to avoid stumbling over my own fingers.

And so today after reflecting on the last two years of my own life, I am reminded some 30+ plus years later, that BeeBee’s advice to take time is a worthy endeavor. In these days of instant texts, finishing all emails within the day, urgency to keep moving forward, there doesn’t seem a lot of value in taking time. We expect results instantly. I loved writing BeeBee every Sunday night and knowing about Thursday of that week, my letter would arrive in her room at Guardian Care, and knowing she'd then share my news with others. I loved the short walks to visit her, and receiving permission to reach into that candy jar, I loved knowing that it is okay to take a nap every afternoon to get to 100 and I loved looking at the Crepe Myrtle, Sweet Peas and Camellia’s and hearing her talk about her garden, which by the time I knew her, she just watched from her window. She encouraged me to dig up some Scottish Bluebells to plant at home on Long Island.

Taking time. 

I stepped aside these last two years. After what was probably the most difficult year of my life, I withdrew to take some time. Not many really understood it, many were scared to ask about it and yet, a few even challenged it. I stumbled a bit in life and ran over my fingers, and when I attempted to get back up, I was either knocked down or fell a few times. I retreated and worked quietly on myself. Losing your business, your mother, your financial security and your best friend was a bit too much for me to comprehend. 

I spent a lot of time looking for the Crepe Myrtles, Sweet Peas and Camellias. I lost all grounding and laid low and licked my wounds. I took time to grow my flowers and to walk Oslo. I played my piano. I took time to try and listen to my friends in need and share news of others and I took time to heal and exercise and become stronger physically and mentally. I stopped and paused and didn’t work, didn't advance my professional career. Was it luxury? Was it necessity? Was it right? Was it wrong?

Not sure any of us can answer that. But bit by bit you start to rebuild and you start to thrive again, you see yourself again in the mirror and you like what you see and you are ready for another adventure, a new challenge, a new course of action, or the next piece of Chopin. 

Taking time in life can be a good thing and then one day you are ready again. I think BeeBee would have understood my last two years.