And I loved how you would just listen to me play from the other room from where I couldn't see you—in your arm chair with the paper, glasses to the side, slippers if it were winter. I couldn't see you but I knew—even when I would mess up—I knew you didn't move and you didn't leave because I was listening. And I came to love, in the silence of my frustration, as the clashing chords dissipated in the darkness between us, the slow rough sound of the paper’s pages being folded over themselves, the loosening shake and the tightening slap as you stretched the metro page before you. I loved it because it meant you didn't go, and that’s why I didn't either. That is why I continued to play.
Later I would hear you around the house whistling my melodies, I think unbeknownst to you. That meant the world to me. I have to say, it really did.
+ Br. Joseph Michael Fino, CFR
Paterson, NJ
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