I look at this photo and see my little left hand touching my father’s left hand. And I still turn my left hand over, all grown up, and touch the fingers that I know touched his.

My dad got us a piano the year he died. So when I started to learn to play as a little girl, I imagined the piano notes and music to be like a language that he could hear wherever he was, like he got us the piano so we could still communicate. I have never really outgrown that thought.

Here is “Blackbird” for my dad, Les Barr, 8/21/48 – 11/11/91. Recorded for the 30th anniversary of his death on the same piano he gave me so I could still reach him.

As I listen back to this recording, I can hear a faint bird call right in the middle. A reply from him because why not and who’s to say? I am always looking and listening for him, and over thirty years, I’ve gotten pretty good at it.