I was fourteen when cancer took my mom. The kind of slow, cruel death that steals a person in fractions, until all you have left is the memory of how they used to laugh, the scent of their sweater, and in my case—music.

Every Sunday, no matter how sick she was, she played her piano. Her fingers, pale and trembling by the end, would still find the keys. Jazz. Classical. Standards

from her youth. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that sound. That moment. I’d sit cross-legged on the rug, bowl of cereal in hand, and just listen. It was the last real thing she left me.

The piano was a dark mahogany upright Steinway with ivory keys and carved legs that reminded me of old movie sets. To me, it wasn’t just a piano. It was her voice after she lost her own.