Global piano

 I'll start my exploration of valued possessions with one of my oldest possessions; my Mother's piano. Obviously the piano has a track record for having travelled the world. First starting with my Mother; having bought it Toronto in the 70's, took it to New Jersey & Oklahoma, and it returned to my possession in Toronto upon her death.

My Mother died when she was only 53 years old, so it was already a priceless possession in my mind, because I would never get anything else from her ever again. 

The piano followed us on our travels to Poland, the UK and now Boston. Despite its part in my children’s obstacle course in the front lounge & its role as a mouse habitat, it has never needed anything other than a clean-up or tuning. 

On its last trip, however, I was very close to losing this priceless memory of my Mother that I will never forget. For anyone doing a transatlantic move, they will be familiar with some of the added caution moving companies use to ensure your belongings arrive safe & sound & having done my homework, I chose a company that included having a special crate made to transport my piano safely to its destination. While I was supervising the move on the UK side, I noticed that although they had taped the piano with several layers of carton, I still hadn't seen hide nor hair of this specially-built wooden crate. I was assured by the movers over the 2 days of packing that it would be in a crate, and even when I returned on the final morning to the now empty house & the piano somewhere on the truck, I was assured that it had indeed been packaged correctly.

Imagine my horror, when helping on the Boston end to unpack the track, that I noticed the all too-familiar shape of my beloved piano encased in only 2 layers of cheap cardboard, with 3 more cartons stacked on top of it!!! Perhaps it was the stress of moving, or the gut punch of feeling that I was losing that one strand of thread connecting me to my mother, but I presented those fine gentlemen to a fit of epic proportions. Unfortunately for me, that included quite a bit of waterworks, which took some of the oomph away from my righteous fury of a customer denied their contractual obligations. 

After much empathy and support from these guiltless guys in coveralls, we were able to gently unload & unpack the piano and find that it had not suffered any catastrophic damage, thank goodness! 

Although it still stands today as an object mostly unused, it will always be a shrine to my mother, her voice & her talent.