Susan

It was something out of a dream, like Orcas Island itself, and it’s still in my memory more than twenty years later. 

It was one of those late fall/early winter days, misty and gray. I and my brand new little family had been perched on top of Chestnut Hill on this faraway island for a couple months. Heather’s and my morning routine was sitting on the porch of “the big yellow house” as my three year old called it, drinking our coffee and talking about life stuff. Looking down the hill on a little white chapel, next to a grove of pines that same daughter had dubbed the Magic Forest. 

I’d not been inside that little chapel, though the Smith family who owned it said the door was always open.  

Today was the day. 

Down the hill I walked, through the mist and the pear trees and the goose poop— a little nervous. I mean, it was private property, and even with the open invitation, I felt like I shouldn’t be doing this without permission.  

They were right. The door was open. It was cold inside, but I was warmed by the light coming in the windows, and the wood floor and little pews. Felt like I’d stepped back in time 150 years. At the front of the room— not sure altar is the right word— off to the left, was a piano. And I was pulled to that old upright like it had a tractor beam. Opened it up, and my nervous fingers paused… 

As I do now in this memory. A not so small aside here, I’d been drawn to this faraway island in a similar fashion. Pulled by something outside of myself and far away from logic, and quite honestly, in those two months in that yellow house on the hill, I was beginning to wonder if I hadn’t made an emotional and quite illogical decision, coming to this extraordinarily out of the way place to start a new life with that brand new little family.  

The first chord delivered that perfect hardwood-floor reverb all musicians love, warming that little room. Without thinking— probably because I was in this particular little room— my hands started playing Amazing Grace. I wasn’t much of a piano player, this song was just in my southern gospel sense memory, but I can still hear that wonderful song echoing through that little chapel, and the last chord fading into silence. 

“Well, that was something,” said a sweet voice, startling me mightily. “Who might you be?” 

And there in the doorway was Susan. 

Susan lived right down the road, and clearly belonged here. I stammered through some explanation and apology, not only for my unauthorized entry but also my very mediocre playing. She waved both away with a sweet laugh, and welcomed me to the neighborhood and the island itself. The next thing I knew, an hour had gone by. Susan and me, just… talking. About music, and the Smiths’ little chapel here next to the magic forest, and life stuff— like emotional and less than logical decisions we all make sometimes, and the wonders of life lived around them. 

I can’t remember all she said, but I know I positively glided back up the hill through the pear trees and the tall grass and the mist, and yes, the ever-present goose droppings… feeling every word of the hymn I’d just played. 

Christmas Eve a few weeks later, in that warm and glowing little chapel, now packed with local people, Susan played that same piano like the master she was, and her voice filled that room, singing like an angel, reducing us all to tears. 

And she smiled at me. 

Stepping back into the cold night air afterwards, looking up the hill at the Christmas lights on my yellow house, my new friend Susan hugged me and my little family, and wished us love and happiness and a grand and Merry Christmas. 

Twenty years later, and two thousand miles from that faraway magic isle, that dream-like memory remains. And it’s all the logic I need. 

Godspeed, dear Susan. I can’t wait to hear you sing with the other angels.