Although Josh had never been in the service, the picture of the bombed area and particularly of the piano sitting outdoors brought tears to his eyes. Was that building a church? Who had so patiently piled up the loose bricks as though rebuilding might be started shortly? And, he thought, swallowing the lump in his throat, who had played that upright piano? The top was missing, the wood battered and scarred. Yet the keys remained, although covered with dirt and dust and debris.

The piano was almost identical to the one he had practiced on, years ago. His was housed in a warm and loving home, in the living room, its straight back against an inside wall in the winter and moved to an outside wall during the summer. He loved music, but how he had hated practicing! He itched to don his catcher’s mitt and join the guys, not poke at alien ivories trying to play some sissy tunes indoors all alone.

His sister, Julie, was just the opposite. She not only played the old upright, she coaxed the most beautiful sounds from it. She progressed quickly in her lessons and finally outgrew her teacher. Due to her love of music and the talent God bestowed on her, a former Juilliard graduate offered to continue Julie’s studies. Josh remembered the evenings Julie played Bach or Schubert while their father joined in with his violin. And, now and then, she would play popular music as the whole family sang along. Even after the “great sacrifice” of purchasing the baby grand, the music never affected Josh the way that old upright did. Such wonderful memories.

Then, Julie, devastated by rheumatoid arthritis at twenty-one, had no choice but to give up her dream of someday playing in Carnegie Hall. Many times Josh had asked God, “Why?” Why would a loving God give such talent and then not allow her to use it?

Now that he was grown, regret haunted him. Over the years he had wished he had learned to play. He would never have been as good as Julie, but perhaps it would have pleased her to teach her big brother along with her young students. Not only the popular stuff to entertain his friends, but the beautiful hymns he had come to know and love. Always, life interfered. Time. There was never enough. Suddenly a lifetime had passed and he still, at eighty-nine, could not play the piano.

As the tears made their way down his wrinkled cheeks, Josh whispered a prayer. That whoever had played that forlorn, piano had brought as much happiness to whoever heard it as that childhood upright had brought to him through his sister.