By my calculations, it has been two weeks since I’ve touched an organ keyboard. We have been on the mainland visiting family and I have to say that music and playing the organ, or even writing this blog, for that matter, have been the farthest things from my mind. So what have I been doing?… Read More Like riding a bicycle?
From the time I played my last church service on Christmas Day until last Saturday when I played for a funeral, I didn’t touch an organ keyboard. So I was understandably rusty — my fingers did not feel as though they were attached to my hands! and my feet seemed to have minds of their… Read More Musical hiatus
As some of you know, I write two blogs: one about the goings-on from the Music Department of the Lutheran Church of Honolulu (Another Year of Insanity) and the other, about Burbank High School Class of 1968. This will be the first (and maybe the one and only!) time that I will post the very… Read More A funeral, then a wedding
Today is our 34th wedding anniversary and this morning Carl said to me, “You know, this will be the first time that we won’t receive an anniversary card and check from your mother.” Yes, she was so good about remembering all her children’s and grandchildren’s birthdays and anniversaries and never failed to send a card… Read More A Life Well-Lived
I’m not sure who made the decision, but collectively all five siblings in my family have worked on the eulogy for my mother. I’m so very proud of my brothers and sisters in their abilities to write coherently and articulately, and writing the eulogy together has been an enlightening experience. Aren’t Google Docs great? Of… Read More Eulogy Writing 101
Some people these days spend a lot of time thinking about what they want their memorial service to be like. My mother, Dorothy Au, spent the last year or so deciding what she wanted in the way of music, food and arrangements down the last detail, even though she was reasonably in good health until… Read More Music for the End
This is the post that I knew one day would have to be written. I just didn’t know it would be today. I had already made plans to fly to California to be with our son, Stephen, as he was to undergo gall bladder surgery. This morning, though, I received a call from my brother,… Read More Dorothy Chiu Au, 1917-2011