Las Vegas Piano Student Does Do-Over Recital For His Dad
This is going to be a story of loss, attitude and triumph revolving around a Las Vegas piano student, and my son, Colin.
On Saturday, Colin had his second-ever piano recital. His first recital was an incredible moment! Getting to see my boy get in front of a church filled with people and do an amazing job was a proud papa moment for sure. So surely I wanted to be there for the second one.
Saturday was set to be a busy day. His youngest brother had soccer at 10am. Right next door Colin was having his recital at 11:30am. Then immediately we would double back and get him to his soccer game at 12:15pm. Busy day, but what day isn’t when you have kids involved in extracurriculars.
Towards the end of the soccer game I got a text. All of a sudden, the recital started at 11. The next text? He is already up on stage. I can literally see the church. I rushed Mario from soccer, wheeled the wagon next door, and by the time I walked in it was over. I was beside myself.
Colin wasn’t mad at me. But I was livid. I was livid about the time change, about the fact that we had worked together on that piece hours and days to get him to that day and I was that close but didn’t get to watch my Las Vegas piano student perform it live.
Being a single dad, you feel as though you want to try twice as hard to be there for everything, to show up for everything. I felt like I was failed, and I failed.
Las Vegas Piano Student Gets An On-Air, Do-Over Recital
I try to be positive. This really bothered me. But like my hero Tom Brady (not really but kind of), I wanted to take this negative moment, digest it, and spit out a championship.
In the car with Colin, I said how bummed I was. Again – he wasn’t mad. But I want to make sure he knows I’ll always be there. I said “hey, would you want to come on the show tomorrow and perform it one more time?”
“Yes!,” Colin exclaimed. Nice. Lemons, meet lemonade. If I can’t be there for the main event, why not give this Las Vegas piano student another event?
So on Tuesday morning, Colin’s first day in the summer break, he rolled out of bed and headed to work with me, his 88-key Roland in tow. It’s take your son to work day!
The gravity of the situation was kind of lost on him. He’ll just be performing for me and Aimee in a studio. Then I pointed at the mountains ahead of us on Durango. “See those mountains? They will be able to hear you all the way over there.” Colin looked surprised, despite knowing what dad does for a living. “The mountains over there and over there, they’ll be able to hear you that far too.” A true The Lion King moment.
“Dad, mountains can’t listen to the radio.” No, son. They can’t. 7-years-old, everyone.
This Las Vegas piano student couldn’t wait to get going. He really wanted to do it, but we promised the listeners 8 a.m.. He practiced a little before his big moment.
But as he practiced in the few minutes before his big moment, he was starting to make mistakes and get frustrated. I looked over and said “Colin, relax. You got this.”
Learning piano should be a fun exercise, not a high pressure event. Voices shouldn’t rise. Spirits should never be squashed. Music, and every extracurricular, should bring joy. Don’t get freaked out. Just do what you know you can do.
And holy crap, this Las Vegas piano student did it. Colin performed what could quite possibly be the most error free, perfect performance of his life and did it with a massive audience in the tens of thousands. Texts poured in from all around (even past those mountains in Arizona). He was thrilled, and I was thrilled for him.
A terrible event ended up creating one of the most special events I’ll remember in my life, and hopefully he’d say the same. Love you, buddy.
