I repaired the violin my father left unfinished

Dear Delyara, My father was a violin maker and died with one instrument unfinished on his bench. For six years, I could not touch it. The top plate was carved, but the neck had not been set and the varnish existed only in notes written in the margin of an old book. Last winter, I began working on it one hour each Sunday. I followed his measurements where they existed and made my own decisions where they did not. Today, I strung the violin and drew the bow across it for the first time. The tone was darker than his instruments usually were, uneven at the top, but alive. My daughter played a simple scale while I listened from the doorway. I had feared finishing it would end the last conversation between my father’s hands and mine. Instead, the sound entered the workshop and made the room feel occupied again. The violin is not entirely his and not entirely mine. That is exactly why I love it.