The gift of music.

When I was seven, my parents offered me one of the greatest gifts that I would carry with my throughout the rest of my life. Piano lessons.

In September, 1991, I began my first piano lesson. Lessons which would take place all the way until I was a freshman in high school. Eight years of lessons I had; amazing how it changed my life.

I feel that the passion behind my piano playing does not come from hours upon hours of practicing and sitting at the piano as straight as I could be, without any nails to click the keys. But the talent I bestow comes from within and from the spirit which is locked inside the piano which I am so fortunate to have. You see, the piano has a story greater than any I have heard before.

In the mid-1940s, my grandmother on my maternal side (still living) moved to Manistique, MI with her parents to be closer to her family members who already lived there. A few years after moving there, my great-grandfather Smith got wind that the piano inside the local movie theater was going to be sold/given away. My great-grandfather (a local butcher) jumped at the opportunity to have this in his home.

For years, the piano was played on by great-aunts/uncles of mine. Many of which I met as a small child when I would visit Manistique during my summer breaks with my Gramma Kosloske.

When my Gramma was 18, she moved to Milwaukee, WI in search of work and a fuller-life than could be offered in small-town Manistique, MI.

Soon enough she met my Grampa..

And a few years after that, they had my mom. When my mom was 10 years old, my Great-Uncle shipped the piano to Wisconsin, as my Gramma was the rightful inheritor of the piano. My mother, became the newest pianist to tickle the ivories on this historical piano.

For years, the piano sat in Milwaukee, WI, until my parents married and moved to Hubertus, WI.  It was then that my grandparents chose to selflessly pass this generational masterpiece onto another family. Thus, my parents inherited the piano.

My sister took lessons, but never found her true passion for the piano as she quickly fell in love with flute. Worked out for me as I never had to share as I was the new owner of this piano.

And so, when Greg and I married in 2006 and purchased our first home in Sussex, WI, we took the piano with us in hopes that our children would some day enjoy it as well. (Morgan 12mo)

And now, here I am. Sitting alone in the house with no husband, no kids, on my last night in Farmington, MO and I find myself feeling compelled to play as long and as loud as I can.

I am so grateful for this gift my parents gave me. The gift of music, transformed through years of lessons, I am so proud to have to carry with my for years to come.

And every time I touch the keys, which play oh so perfectly as they have been broken in for at least 60 years now, I think of my ancestors who played before me and how many people I blessed with my playing over the years. What a true blessing I have been given indeed.