I'm sure he never saw a day like this coming (and his parents and brothers probably didn't either), and believe it or not, his ping pong skills weren't even considered when he was hired at his new job. I guess it was just kind of a bonus for his company that one year his family decided to forgo a family vacation and buy a ping pong table instead and he developed the ability to play the game and then ended up working for them a mere three weeks before the Utah Business Games.
So,this is our public thank you to the Fowler family (and to my little brother) for playing with him over the years and helping him use this forgotten talent to seamlessly incorporate himself into his new career.
And here is my public thank you to my parents (and my siblings, who had to listen to me practice) for the forgotten talent that blessed my life today.
Today was a doozy. I woke up too grumpy, too early and never seemed to gather any more energy. I was snappish and saddish and having a hard time figuring out how I was going to endure this Thursday, which is the day of the week that seems to never end. It was a pity party and my poor children unwillingly found themselves as the only guests (and, let me tell you, they weren't too happy about it either). Just when I had reached the end of my rope, my visiting teacher came and broke up my day. Shortly after she left, I got a text from one best friend and then a phone call from another. By the time I hung up, I was feeling much better about life (girl talk can do that for you).
Still, there was Kevin, begging me to play, and there was me, with not enough energy to handle any more Little People/Daniel Tiger/Princess Castle/Preschool. So I asked her if I could have a few minutes to practice the piano. Surprisingly, she was okay with that. I sat down at the piano and started plinking out primary songs, in an effort to become familiar enough with a handful of songs so if our Primary pianist has to run out for a potty emergency, I can step in for a few measures or verses.
I don't think a few minutes of accompanist substitution is what my mother had in mind when she spent her hard-earned preschool money on my piano lessons for almost a decade. I think we all knew I was never going to become a concert pianist (our neighborhood already had one of those, and I was never any competition for her in anything, so it's a good thing we were friends. We moved a couple of times and every few years I was starting over with a new teacher. My first teacher was determined to teach me to count, and I was determined to only play rhythm-by-ear. After two years, I still hadn't progressed to learning eighth notes, but I could read music and knew theory. My second teacher was much more flexible, but I still progressed very slowly. My third and last teacher was given one instruction by my mother: just teach her how to play hymns. We all knew I had no great musical talent--but when it comes to serving in God's kingdom, talent is an afterthought. Willingness is the key.
Willingness has never been my strong suit when it comes to playing the piano.
Occasionally I would step in during seminary or institute (because singing with an off-tempo piano beat a capella most days), and on my mission I wouldvolunteer whenever I was needed (which, thankfully, was not often). Overall, for the past ten years, I've had very limited access to a piano to practice, so my skills have fallen dormant and, I'm sad to say, I was pretty okay with that.
Especially when several months ago the Bishop texted my husband to ask if either of us played. I made sure Scott put an emphasis on "not very well" when he texted him back, to which the Bishop replied: "How much did she pay you to say that?"
Last September, by some miracle, we bought a beautiful piano (and, by an even greater miracle, found eight men to move the beast within an hour). We practice occasionally, but Sly is not a fan, so when I have a quiet minute, it usually gets spent in some other occupation.
Today, though, I just needed some time to myself, and I needed to have an excuse to not be playing with my daughter. So I started stumbling through "Follow the Prophet" and then moved on to a few more familiar songs. Soon, Kevin was standing by me, asking "Mama, I sit by you?" Grudgingly, I moved up an octave and helped her climb up on the bench. She placed her hands on the piano with a perfect arch, and asked me to keep playing. She started humming along.
"Sing, Mama."
Let it be known, my singing skills are definitely worse than my piano skills.
I dislike singing out loud, and I am terrified of singing in public, but I have tried very hard not to let my daughter know that. I sing to her and with her whenever she wants. I don't want her to be stopped by insecurities like I am, so we sing. We sing terribly. We sing off key and off tune and off tone and off tempo and off everything.
But we still sing.
So when she asked me to sing today, I did.
I turned the page to a song I knew she knew and I started to sing. And even though I was playing a good octave (or more) above my vocal range, I did my best to sing in tune with the piano.
And, by the time I reached the chorus, she was singing with me.
And suddenly, it stopped mattering that I wasn't playing the right notes on the right beats. It stopped mattering that we only hit one note in five, that she didn't really know the words, and that sometimes we were on different verses. It didn't matter that I was having a bad day and was probably a bad mother and she'd eaten six peanut butter and nutella sandwiches in the past 24 hours.
The spirit that filled our home and hearts created a little bubble around us, one that chased away the bad day and long hours and daddy being gone and stress and sore muscles and tired eyes and reminded both of us that we really did love being together. Kevin kept asking for one more song, one more song, one more song, picking out ones she wanted me to play and begging, "One more. Last one." I played every song she even remotely knew and then some.
And even if I never play a note in Primary or any other meeting ever again, twenty years of playing and thousands (okay, maybe only hundreds) of hours of practicing were worth it for those twenty minutes that I sat with my daughter and we ended up playing.
Together.
Thanks Mom.
