Ms. Dorothy [Night #1]

I will start my One Thousand and One Nights of writing with music because that’s what defined Elira in her short life here. Elira was only 5 years old when I started taking her to piano lessons. She had expressed interest in playing the piano and I started looking for a teacher. My friend Megan, with whom I was teaching English as a Second Language at the Broomfield United Methodist Church in Broomfield, CO, told me about this wonderful woman at church, Ms. Dorothy. At first, Ms. Dorothy was skeptical because Elira was young. She told me she usually doesn’t teach kids until they are able to read. Elira had started reading when she was 3 and a half and at age 5 was reading chapter books with ease. Ms. Dorothy and Elira hit it off. We were supposed to be there for only 30 minutes but Elira and Ms. Dorothy sat at the piano for over an hour most times. I sat in the comfortable armchair adoring the two of them working through the notes. I learned a little, too from just watching them. Ms. Dorothy loved Elira and she would often tell me she had never seen a child sit at the piano for that long with so much interest. Elira loved Ms. Dorothy even more. They clapped the half notes and the whole notes for many hours.

We didn’t have a piano at home and Elira needed to practice. I wasn’t sure how long Elira’s interest would last at the time. She was young. So, I went to Goodwill with my dad and picked up a brown keyboard with semi-heavy keys. I had no idea how much that keyboard would be used over the years! Elira soaked up the music like she had been playing forever. Her little hands were divine. Ms. Dorothy would teach her how to sit properly at the piano, how to put her hands on the keys, and even how to bow after her performance [have you shined your shoes today :)]. Eventually, we had to leave Colorado for job reasons and Elira had to part ways with her beloved teacher but she never forgot the woman who introduced her to what was Elira’s favorite thing in the world, the piano!