PIANO PARADISE
Dominique played piano since he was a little boy. When I met him, he was living in a beautiful, immaculately clean, Italian house with his Mother, Brother and Brother's Wife. His Mother was one of the best cooks in this entire Universe. She was everyone's "Nana"...a beautiful, kind, intelligent and tiny as a little lark woman....She had long hair but always wore it up in a very hugh "bun". Just being around her, put music in one's heart. 
Dominique had not given piano lessons for years when I talked him into tutoring me. By then, I was an adult....I had always wanted to play piano so Dominique helped a dream of mine come true. Their piano was a Grand.....First time I took a lesson, I was almost fearful of teaching such a beautiful piano....Dominique laughed at me.
Dominique told me many stories....He had spent his life playing at "piano bars". He told me he had the hardest time sleeping at nights as he had always worked during the nights. He told me how he would always play the piano so people could have fun....but would never dance....He said he got more "ribbing" from everyone about his not dancing. They couldn't believe there was a person in the Universe who could play the piano like he could....but not be able to dance and move his body to the music.
He talked about how Italians were really the "first" to introduce piano to the world at large. He said the German piano players were much more "precise" and some of the absolute finest players in the world though. Dominique knew how important music is to human nature. He said, "If you take a primitive society, they will find a way to make music....they will bang two sticks together......someway or another, they WILL make music."
He shared with me how his only son had started playing piano when he was about three years old "by ear". Dominique did not believe in "starting" music as in playing piano or any instrument until the child was old enough to learn not by "rote" but by theory. So, one day he walked in and heard this beautiful music coming from his piano....His wife showed him it was their son.....He had a German instructor teach his son. Later, this son went on to be a piano classical smphony player.
He also told me about the "Surgeon" who wanted to take piano lessons from him. "He worked on me a long time......asking and asking for me to teach him....." Dominique said, "Now you would have thought, anyone who could operate on people.....you would have thought they could have played piano easily......That surgeon...he could never play piano.....try though he would..."
When I decided to buy a piano, of my own, I asked Dominique if he would go with me. We spent a lot of time looking for a piano. He checked every sound board for even a hairline crack. Finally, I found a Baldwin and with Dominique's blessings, purchased it. Though it wasn't a beautiful Grand like his, it was a wonderful instrument. When I got to busy to play it, I took it to my "half brother" whose daughter took lessons on it.
Dominique told me he thought I had learned very, very quickly. He gave me a lot of courage for nursing school. He said, "I think as quickly as you have learned piano...I think that will be the way it is for anything you choose to learn."
Dominique had not been feeling good for a very long time. When stomach cancer was confirmed, he told me, "Iris, don't ever get old." Then he looked at me and said, "Then again.......considering the options.....there just aren't any."
I watched Dominique go downhill quickly. He confided in me that he was able to play the piano less and less these days. He had written many beautiful compositions.....His physical deterroration was forcing him to move away from the piano he loved so much.
When he was "unconscious" to the world at large.....his fingers still "moved" as though he were playing piano....I asked Nana about that.....She told me he had been doing that ever since he lost consciousness.....Though we could not see the piano his hands were playing on, they were very busy playing and no doubt making phenominal music.
Proof perhaps, that the music within us never dies. I hope his piano continued to make wondrous chords of harmony until he slipped melodously into Piano Paradise.
