Playing In The Dark

A fond memory of music, meaning, fathers & feeling, when the lights go out.

It was on an evening sometime in the latter half of 2014 or the first half of 2015 when the power had gone out, likely after a windstorm. I was sitting in the dark with my father after our conversation abruptly ended. Likely, it was the kind of long and meandering drawn-out philosophical dialogue we were amenable to having over the years. 

I miss those terribly.

The house was empty save for us two.

On a whim, I suggested that I could entertain and play some piano for a while in the dark. He asked, “But how? There’s no light.”

“Well, how did Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder play?” I replied cheekily.

And so, we made our way upstairs to the living room where the Estonia Model 190 grand piano resided, a gift from father to son to encourage his piano studies some 17 years prior. I took my comfortable seat at the bench, my father on a nearby couch. Then I began to play. Thankfully, my confidence was not misplaced – while the visual aspect of learning one’s instrument for the sighted is vital, so too is developing what I call hand-ear coordination, though I’m not sure I’ve ever heard the term mentioned elsewhere.

Photo by Jan Huber on Unsplash

I felt a certain freedom from playing in the dark, free from visual distraction. While more than half of a neurotypical brain is involved in visual processing, subjectively it had an inward focussing effect – my heart, ears and hands connected with the familiar contours of familiar pieces, sounds and keys in new ways, bereft from the self-consciousness of sight. 

My father was in his late 70’s at the time and his health and spirits were ailing. He had a lot of specialist doctor appointments – heart, lung, kidney and internal medicine, on top of family doctor visits. His outlook on life was not great at the time, and I recall him cynically joking once “being sick is a full-time job.”

And so sitting there in the dark while playing the piano, I’m sure I must have played Hoagy Carmichael’s “Georgia On My Mind”, made famous by Ray Charles, as a fitting selection for the occasion. Though I’ve not yet been to Georgia, we shared a profound appreciation for that song. In addition to the present recounting, I’ve played that piece countless times over the years (here’s an excerpt on a $425,000 CAD piano). Another fond moment includes a spontaneous duet with my sister’s vocals, in Juneau, Alaska, at the Red Dog Saloon for our dad’s 75th birthday, some years ago.

Whether it was that night or the following day, he reflected, “You know, Tai, moments like these make life worthwhile. Maybe I’ll stick around a bit longer.” 

His appreciation for music was palpable. He loved it. He was a music fan, through and through. In his earlier years, he would often go dancing (I reflected on some of my other favorite musical memories in this piece). At one point he even owned a club for a while in Toronto, if memory serves. I could feel his enjoyment that evening, sitting on the sofa perhaps a couple of arm’s lengths away. Even the dark could not contain the brightness of his enthusiasm. I could often feel his enjoyment from the other side of the house.

How precious that memory is. 

Perhaps it was a son’s joy giving meaning to his dying father; a father’s love giving meaning to his son; the piano gifted from father to son to encourage him, or the intimacy of a private concert alone in the dark.

The further irony was how deeply the son wrestled with matters of his own life’s meaning, purpose and concomitant pangs of existential angst.

He passed away mere months later, two days after my 32nd birthday.