Don’t you just love true-life stories of friends parted by time and space finally meeting by chance?  Or of pets and their families reuniting after an epic journey despite unbelievable obstacles?  How about musicians who have lost the instrument they grew up with and cherished like an old friend and find it given away or sold?  These stories are filled with all the pathos of life – joy, longing, fear, dispair.  You name it and the emotion is present.

A story like this developed here at the monastery unbeknown to us.  A former sister was a pianist before she entered, and her parents gave her piano to the monastery during the gal’s formative years.  As time would tell, the gal felt called home to be with her mother during a long illness and eventual death.  As it happened so often in days long ago, this sister left the monastery to answer a higher calling.

The piano stayed behind.  It came to be not only a musical instrument but one of healing as well.  Our Sister Edith Marie suffered a stroke that left her mute and unable to interact with others.  She was a gifted musician before her illness.  It was told that Sister Edith Marie was set in front of the piano for an hour each day for months during her recovery at our monastery in St. Louis.

Little by little, note by note, discordant at first, she regained her memory and the use of both hands. By the end of several months, Sister Edith Marie was not only playing from memory but also talking and singing.

This was the gift of the piano. Recently the sister who left our congregation years ago was at our monastery in Clyde and saw the piano. Her heart lept for joy at the sight.  She asked if we would sell it to her.  Instead, we gave it back to her, thus reuniting old lost friends. Arrangements are being made to get this well-loved instrument back to its rightful owner.  We are grateful that it has found a loving home once again.

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