Music Takes Me Away

Living with anxiety, especially in college, is difficult. I constantly worry about stuff I shouldn't be worrying about in that moment and thinking about all of the duties I need to get done each day gives me mounting stress.

But there's one thing that always remedies the situation: playing music.

When I was just 3 years old, my family had this old brown piano sitting in our basement. Nobody in my family was musical, though. I think it had just come with the house. So when my mother went down into the basement to do laundry, I would go down with her and sit at the piano.

What my mom describes happening is her toddler not just slamming his hands on the ivory keys, but trying carefully to play keys in a way that a pianist would.

Since then, I have taught myself to play four different instruments: guitar, piano, bass and drums. I have no idea where this skill came from, but when I hear a song it stays with me forever, and I can immediately apply it to an instrument within five minutes.

And when I do, something magical happens. Playing music takes me away from the worries of my life. It is my escape from reality. Without the constant communication between music and my soul, I'm not sure how else I would deal with my stress and anxiety besides laying in bed all day. And I'm willing to bet Beethoven was not a couch potato.

The Greatest Generation Never Forgotten

I still remember the scent of his aftershave as his scruff scratched my soft skin when I hugged him goodbye. My Grandpa Tony fought in World War II, and that’s all I know about his military involvement. I didn’t know what he did, where he was or what the war was even over. I didn’t know because I was only in the first grade when my hero died.

I say “hero” because now that I’m much older and have a better understanding of this great patriotic war—a war full of personal sacrifice for the cause of freedom—I realize what a fascinating man my grandfather really was.

My Grandpa Tony created the mold of what I thought a man should be. A man provided and cared for his family, a man cooked delicious Sunday Italian dinners, a man had a yearning to learn something new every day.

He also taught me a thing or two about what true love is.

The distance between the two forced my grandparents to write letters to each other. Grandpa Tony started each letter with “My Darling Dorothy” written carefully in the neatest script. You could tell that writing these letters was like trying to craft poetry for the two of them.

Even though I was too young to know much about my grandfather, I quickly realized he was a man I wanted to emulate as I learned more about him as I grew up. There’s a reason they call his generation the greatest; they are the reasons we enjoy most of the freedoms we have today.

From working with North Country Honor Flight, a nonprofit that sends World War II and Korean War veterans to see their memorial in Washington D.C., I see how important remembering and honoring the sacrifices these men made is while being a part of a generation that often forgets about these heroes.

I wish my grandfather could have stuck around later than he did so that I could have seen him go on “one last mission” to see his war memorial. But he is honored each and every day by his grandson who strives to be as great of a man as he was.

Help the remaining few hundred North Country World War II veterans experience Honor Flight by making a donation here.