Subject: RE:Antiques & Ghosts:THE PIANO
From: pathwr@huntleighhealth.com (Eileen Smith)
Date: Wed, 28 Jan 1998 19:37:16 GMT
Hello out there in Cyberland,
Here is my story......
I have always been an antiques lover and have been collecting since I was a teenager. As luck would happen, I happened upon a beautiful old upright piano, it was dated inside as being made in the early 1880's. It was in need of repair and very out of tune. The repairs needed were so extensive that we got the thing for $100!
We repaired it and refinished it, revealing beautiful cherrywood. After it was finished, it was shining and rather impressive. However, because of funds, or the lack thereof, it remained out of tune :) We put it in the guest room downstairs. A few nights laterr, the woman who occupied the guest room downstairs came up to tell me that she thought she heard the piano playing the night before and it was spooking her. People are not afraid to tell me things like this as I am what is termed a "sensitive" and I have researched hauntings, etc. etc. I did not dismiss it, but I looked for an "earthly" explaination first. I did notice with my sensitivities that the piano was carrying a very warm and friendly feeling after we fixed it up, like it was thankful. I also noticed that one of my cats, Samain took a shine to it and it became his very favorite place to play and sleep. (We nick named him "Sam-a-Tune" as he liked to walk up and down the keys and make them "play". We still call him that:) I was also very strongly getting the feeling of a male presence around the piano, but what was unusual, was this feeling only surrounded it in the evening.
Anyway, a few weeks later, my houseguest said she thought she thought she saw a ghostly man in her room one night. I trusted her not to be dramatic in her imagination, so I knew we had something going on here with the piano. A few nights later, at about 10:00pm, I was reading, and I began to hear the faint sound of a piano playing, it sounded like it was being played a block away, but it was coming from the piano downstairs. It was Chopin, and it was being played badly out of tune. Exactly in the keys the piano was in need of repair! The same thing happened the next night. I was also experiencing a feeling of this "male presence" coming upstairs and looking in my bedroom as I slept, but not coming full in, like your mom would when she checks in on you. I would wake up briefly at these visits. During this time, my best friend came to visit and I put her in the bedroom down the hall from me. She came to me one morning and told me she thought she saw a man at my bedroom door the night before.
I went to the piano one evening about 10:00, and "opened" my self to impressions. I saw an elderly, but sturdy looking gentleman in a smoking jacket, smiling, sitting at the piano. He told me he used to play the piano in some "men's club"that the gentlemen of the time gathered to talk, smoke cigars, drink, and generally enjoy each other in comraderie. He also flashed a pipe sometimes in his hand. He was very atteched to the piano and the fond memories it held for him. He like us and the atmosphere of the room the piano was in, "very library-male-victorian-stuff".
We co-existed peacefully until I had to move to a small apartment due to upheavals in my personal life, and could not take the piano. The movers were super guys, friendly young surfer-dude types. One of the guys fell in love with the piano. I took him aside and told him he could have the piano, free of charge, on one condition...I told him it was haunted and by whom and why and said if he promised to give it a good home and take care of it he could have it. He was thrilled and actually understood what it all meant and was very into its history. Somehow I knew he would be, that is why I took him aside in the first place.
Well, I miss that piano, it had alot of character, and I hope it and it's true owner are happy and well.
Eileen Smith
The Path of the White Rose
cndn@kidsurf.net
