I awaken to the memory of music. One clear note after the other fill my being. The runs, trills, the notes held, the glory of it fills me and I find myself weeping.
The longing for my dad’s music began long before he died. He had given it up when the pressure was harmful to his eyes, I believe. Setting his horn aside was a wound that his children bore.
We grew up with a difficult man, but he was a world-class trumpeter. World Class. So glorious was that sound that I found myself praying that God would give him a trumpet in heaven that he might play with the angels.
The richness and beauty of his playing transported me, I knew not where, but it was where beauty is so profound it is an enjoyment that wounds. It was so beautiful that it awoke soul-deep longings for…I knew not what. Now, I believe it awoke a longing for Heaven, for the beauty that is beyond, for the God who created music.
The taste of Heaven in a glorious sunset, in a piece of music, in a babies laughter, in a brilliant flower or in the sound of my Father’s trumpet, while filling me with joy and delight, also fill me with a longing for something beyond, for that world just out of reach.
I’m longing for Heaven. And I pray that, arriving, I’m greeted with the sound of my dad, playing a trumpet, Heaven-style.
significanttrivialities 