Monday, October 3, 2011

Of Dulcimers and Mothers




Its time for the Daniel Boone Festival in Knox County, Kentucky. That's where my mother lives--and its one of her favorite times of year. The week-long celebration features all manner of down home festivities and treats, including a good dose of folk music. Not the Peter, Paul and Mary kind of folk music (much as I love it!) but real, home-made, folk music.



My mother cared for my disabled father for seventeen years before he died back in 2009. Two years before then she decided, at the age of seventy-four, to try something new. She's always been touched by the plaintive sound of the dulcimer, a stringed instrument which figures prominently in Appalachian music. So she took a few lessons. Then she had a dulcimer made for her by a man named Lloyd Graham. It's a lovely piece of work--its cheery wood fairly sparkles! She calls it Anna.




In time mother joined a dulcimer group called, I'm not making this up, the Knox County Porch Pickers. They'll be playing at a quilt exhibit this week at the festival.



The day after my father's Memorial Service, mother assembled us all, my brothers and sister and our families, in her living room for a bit of a recital. She started by playing "My Shepherd Will Supply My Need," Isaac Watts paraphrase of the 23rd Psalm. "I always start with that when I practice," she said. It is, I am sure, her musical prayer. Then she played "Red River Valley" and "Spotted Pony" and "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny." Finally, she wound up playing a piece called "Southwind." It's called that," she said, "because of the way you play it, like this." And then she demonstrated a strumming of the strings that, indeed, sounded like the wind. She almost seemed in another world as she played it.



As her fingers ran across the strings, emitting their lovely tones, I couldn't help but think how those same fingers had tended my father's aches and pains and over the decades, had prepared his favorite meals. How those same fingers caressed his cheek, even when he could do nothing to respond. And how for over fifty-six years, those fingers had been entwined with his in alove that reflected the very love of God.



All that from a little concert on the dulcimer! Amazing! Amazing grace indeed.



Happy Daniel Boone Week, Mom! Might you strum for years to come!






(Photo Credit: Doreen Birdsell)

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