Here’s to you, Uncle Chuck.
I can play 13 notes of Fur Elise. It’s not pretty, but I can play it. I like to call it the “beginner’s version.”
This came to me a few days ago. I was riding my bike past one of Austin’s pianos and I decided to sit down and play. I’m not much of a piano player, but my sister is. She’s amazing. I’ve always wanted her to learn how to play Fur Elise because I really think I could listen to it for hours upon hours.
So I was sitting at this piano - wanting to play something but I didn’t know what. Yankee Doodle was the first song I ever learned, but I figured it didn’t really match the atmosphere. Me, sitting by a beautiful piano overlooking Town Lake…I could surely come up with something more sophisticated than Yankee Doodle.
Then I realized I knew the first 13 notes of Fur Elise. So I started playing them. And since that was all I knew, I just played it over and over.
It brought me back to this memory of when I was a teenager.
We were on our way home from Colorado. My family and I were on the dirtiest, oldest Amtrak train I’d ever seen. And I hated every minute of it. But not just because it was dirty.
My Uncle Chuck was sick. Really sick, with a brain tumor. And Amtrak was the fastest way home from our vacation that, when it was all said and done, ended up being shorter than 24 hours.
So here Kelsey and I were, sitting on the dirtiest Amtrak I’ve ever seen, playing games and telling stories and trying not to think about what was really going on. In the middle of the night, my mom’s cell phone rang. Her ring tone was Fur Elise.
I don’t need to tell you what the phone call was about. My mom started crying. My dad came over to my sister and I and gave us a hug. And to this day, I always think of my Uncle Chuck when I hear that song.
Even as I played just 13 notes of the song - a terribly butchered, elementary version of it - I looked at the Austin skyline and thought of him.
Here’s to you, Uncle Chuck.
