It took me six months to take her tiny red iPod out of the case. It took me another three months to listen to her music. At first it seemed wrong, like snooping. Like the time, years ago, I opened a notebook she’d forgotten and read words not intended for me.

She was the one with real musical talent, even though I, the older sister, took piano lessons first. Before she could play award-winning concertos, we played “Chopsticks” – duet style – with loud and overindulgent improvisations. We were two sisters, one brunette and one blond, sharing a piano bench, fingers dancing together.

Nina’s been dead for almost ten months now. Yet, sometimes, when my fingers skim over her iPod’s playlist, she chooses a song for me, her musical tastes deeper and more eccentric than my own.

Something happens to me when I hear these unfamiliar songs. I fade away and then, together, Nina and I slip away, allowing the music to improvise our stories, and our emotions free to swirl along.

Maybe it is only my memory of Nina that allows her to be there. But, still she is there.

Today, my fingers stopped on an Ani DeFranco song I had never heard. The melancholy notes wash over me. The room is thick with loss, regret -- and something else I can’t name.

I listen again, to the lyrics this time. Slowly, the meaning changes. It isn’t regret that I didn’t spend more time with my sister while she was alive: it is gratitude for the time we had together.

This shift has to be Nina’s doing because I don’t have that kind of inner peace. Or maybe it’s because I’ve discovered a way to spend time with my sister again, dancing our fingers together over her iPod.

By Maya Creedman

Labels: Maya Creedman

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