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I SAT down on the stairs to listen in on Momma’s playing. She’d surely stop the very minute she knew I was there. High little quiet notes flowed from her fingers and tickled my heart. She was still playing her own made-up version of an introduction, a bit of the refrain before the first stanza, and it was soft and pretty, all played on the top treble keys of her childhood piano. She held on to the last note of the introduction so long that I wondered if this was where the song would stop this time; instead, she transitioned on into the first stanza, still timid little high strikes with flowy treble accompaniment,

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way

Then she dropped an octave lower and let the crescendo mound up like a distant storm rolling in,

When sorrows like sea billows roll

Momma played the first When sorrows like in its usual tempo, but the sea billows roll part was pulled out with a tension like a real turbulent sea. Momma added deep bass notes that gave the feeling of thunder and fear. And then in the notes between these words and what would come next, Momma’s hands went in opposite directions, filling up the entire piano and swelling the whole wide world with tune and feeling. Just when I thought the song was as big as big could get, Momma played even louder, even fuller,

Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say

Toward the end of this phrase, Momma gave the notes the littlest perfect bit of quiet.

Then, nothing. All this, and Momma just stopped before the glorious part. Why did Momma’s songs not ever get finished? Instead of her playing the part that comforts the listener, there were quiet sniffs like a shy little girl being teased. I peeked around the corner to see tears in streams down her face, and I saw my momma, I mean truly saw her, for the first time in my life. There she was with all her memories of her daddy, all her stress from the welfare department, and from her own fiery momma. Right off, it hit me. This was my chance, and it may be my only chance. Momma was the one who needed me. I was the Grace who was supposed to help her in time of need.

Without one speck of hesitation, I went right straight to her. I sat beside her on the bench, and began finishing the song that always hung incomplete. That must be what she needed, for me to help her finish up her song when she couldn’t do it herself. That sounded like grace to me.

Then Momma surprised me. She took the bass while I kept the treble. Together, we got through the refrain, the resolution, the comfort, and started to finish that song Momma’d been trying to complete all alone for as long as I could remember. Together was a whole different story from alone. The sound of us filled the room and quieted our bended, blended hearts.

Sitting there beside Momma, she became more than my momma. In the first place, she wasn’t mine. A person don’t own another person. And in the second place, I realized that she was a lot of things besides my momma. I saw the little girl she used to be, sitting in front of her daddy’s country store getting treated like a princess. I saw her as a daughter at the whims of her own momma’s clenched hands. I saw the sister in her who raised her own little brother. I saw her as friend to people with dirt under their nails, and to some who sparkled when they walked on account of all their drippy diamonds. I saw her as a friend to folks with no sparkle or spark at all. In those moments, the air all filled with song, I picked up Momma’s pain, held it up to the light, and then looked up under it. There was the child momma once was. And there was the child that was me. Right under there, folded up under my Momma’s wings.

Things were different between me and Momma in that moment, and I knew they would be forever. It wasn’t as easy as before to find the line drawn between me and her. Did Momma actually end somewhere, and then I began? If there was a line at all between us, it was a blurry one. There we were, playing the same song, four hands on the piano, two hearts creating the swells of feeling, one spirit between us both.

After the last It is well with my soul, Momma and me sat still, neither of us wanting to end being able to really feel each other after so long acting like each of us was all alone. Momma kept on crying, her tears of sorrow all mixed up with new tears of love. I cried, too, and my momma and me sat at her old piano together for a while. Really and truly together.