I played one song on my father’s accordion

Dear Delyara, My father played accordion at every family gathering. As a teenager, I found it unbearable. He played old songs, sang too loudly, and always tried to make me join in when friends were around. After he died, I found the accordion under his bed. I brought it home and left it in the case for seven years. Last winter, for reasons I still do not fully understand, I enrolled in lessons. I am fifty-five. My left hand gets lost among the buttons, my timing is terrible, and the bellows always seem to run out of air at the wrong moment. Today, I finally played one of Dad’s simplest songs from beginning to end. My mother was in the kitchen. Halfway through, she began singing. Her voice broke on the second verse. I almost stopped playing, but she shook her head. We finished it together. When the last note ended, neither of us spoke for a while. I remembered being sixteen and wishing Dad would put that embarrassing instrument away. I would give anything now to hear him ruin a family dinner with it. Instead, my clumsy hands are learning the songs he carried. I understand something I did not then: he was not only making music. He was making sure everybody in the room knew the same words at the same time.