A Beautiful Story

This is a true story written by Mildred Hondorf a former elementery school music teacher from Des Moines , Iowa

So to the story...............
I have always supplemented my my income by teaching piano lessons, something I have done for over thirty years. I have found over the years that children have many levels of musical ability. I have never had the pleasure of having a prodidgy, though some students I taught have been rather talented.
However, I`ve also had my share of "musically challenged " students. One of whom was called Robby. Robby was 11 years old when his mum (a single mother) dropped him off for his first piano lesson. I prefer that students especially boys, start at an ealier age which I explained to Robby.
But explained Robby it had always been his mother`s dream to hear him play the piano. So I started Robby off on his lessons and from the beginning I thought it was a hopeless task.
As much as Robby tried, he lacked the sense of tone and basic rythm needed to excel. But he dutifully reviewed his scales and some elementary pieces I require all my students to learn.

Over the months he tried and tried while I listened and cringed and tried to encourage him. At the end of each lesson he would say "my mum is going to hear me play someday." But it just seemed hopeless. He did not have any inborn ability. I only knew his mother from the distance as she dropped him off or waited in her aged car to pick him up. She always waved and smiled but never stopped in.Then one day Robby stopped coming to our lessons.

I thought about calling him but assumed because of his lack of ability, that he had decided to persue something else. I was also quite glad that he stopped coming. He was a bad advertisement for my teaching !

Several weeks later I mailed the students a flyer on an up and coming recital. Much to my surprise Robby who had received a flyer too asked me if he could be in the recital. I told him that the recital was for current students and because he had dropped out he did not really qualify. He said his mother had been sick and unable to take him to the piano lessons but he was still practising. "Miss Hondorf ...I`ve just got to play!" he insisted.

I don1t know what led me to allow him to play in the recital. Maybe it was his persistence or maybe it was something inside of me saying it would be alright. The night of the recital came. The high school gymnasium was packed with the parents, friends and relatives. I put Robby up last on the programme before I was to come up onto the stage and thank all the students, then play my finishing piece.I thought that any damage he would do would come at the end of the programme and I could always salvage his poor performance through my "curtain closer."

Well, the recital came and went off without a hitch. The students had been practising and it showed. Then Robby came on stage. His clothes were wrinkled and his hair looked like he`d run an egg whisk through it. "Why didn`t he dress up like the other students?" I thought . "Why didn`t his mother at least make him comb his hair for this special night?"

Robby pulled out the piano stool and he began. I was surprised whe he announced that he was going to play Motzart`s Concerto #21 in C Major.I was not prepared for what I heard next. His fingers were light on the keys, they danced on the ivories. He went from pianissimo to fortissimo. From Alegro to Virtuoso. His suspended chords that Motzart demands were magnificent! Never have I heard Motzart played so well by someone his age. After six minutes of playing he ended in a grand crescendo and everyone was on their feet with wild applause.

Overcome and in tears I ran up onto the stage and put my arms around Robby in joy. "I`ve never heard you play like that Robby ! How`d you do it?" Through the microphone Robby explained :"Well Miss Hondorf ....remember I told you my mother was sick? Well , actually she had cancer and passed away this morning. And well.............she was born deaf so tonight was the first time she ever heard me play. I wanted to make it special."

There wasn`t a dry eye in the house that evening. As the people from Social Services led Robby away from the stage to be placed into foster care, I noticed that even their eyes were red and puffy and I thought how much richer my life had been for taking Robby as a student.

No, I have never been a prodigy but that night I became a prodigy of Robby`s. He was the teacher and I was the pupil. For it is he who taught me the meaning of perserverance and love believing in yourself and maybe even taking a chance on someone and you dont know why.

Robby was killed in the senseless bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April 1995