Eli’s Imperfect Heart

Two Burdens

  

My character Eli Levin suffers from a frightening congenital heart condition, Tetralogy of Fallot. Eli’s story takes place in the middle of the twentieth century, when a surgical procedure had only recently been developed to offer some hope to these children, known as “blue babies” because of the oxygen deprivation they experienced.

Eli has two burdens: he is also a prodigiously gifted pianist. He lets neither of these define him. Eli chooses to become an accompanist, or a collaborating artist, a choice which means he is sharing his gift. He refuses to give in to his heart. Instead, he gives it to music, and to the girl he loves with all his heart, Kristina Porter – who eventually becomes his wife.

When they first met as teenagers, Eli was aware his life would probably be a very short one. Eventually, a second surgery was perfected which still gives T.O.F. patients a good chance at a longer and more “normal” life. Medical science has yet to find a way to make the hearts of these courageous people “normal” even now; and often medication and more surgery are required. Sometimes a heart transplant provides more years.

At this point in the book, Eli is aware of the option for the second surgery, and knows he will have to have the procedure soon. As I learned while researching the book, T.O.F. patients seem to share a great love of life, a desire to achieve all they can despite the odds. They never take their hearts for granted, but most do not let the condition rule their lives. Yet I’m sure they all struggle with their heightened sense of mortality. Eli certainly does.

**********

     Sometimes during a break while he was practicing by himself, Eli would feel a sudden chill. He was about to turn twenty-seven. In three years he’d be thirty. He remembered he had told Krissy when he first met her he wasn’t expected to live past thirty, and he was sure she recalled it as well.

     When Eli had these moments of fear, Krissy was very much aware of it. He would grow very quiet and reach for her urgently. There was desperation in his lovemaking, a sense that he was afraid he could be making love to her for the last time.

     She talked to him about it, stroking his head, his shoulders, his chest. “I think I have an idea what you’re feeling,” she said softly. “I feel it too, sometimes. But Eli, what Les Allen said to me before we were reunited is such a help to me. I know I can’t really understand how you feel, my dearest, sweetest boy. But he told me to focus on life, and not to live or love in fear. Sometimes that has to be hard for you. Sometimes it’s hard for me.” He was quiet but moved as close to her as he could.

     “I know you’ve said you don’t think the power in the universe ... what I’ve come to think of as the Eternal ... intervenes in our lives. And you could be right. But I do wonder if we are given a path to walk in this life for a reason. I don’t think you even know what an inspiration you’ve been not just to me, but to many people who know you.”

     “Why do you say that? I haven’t done anything ... well, I try to share my love of music when I play. I’m sure there are people who don’t like me very much. You know what an opinionated musical snob I am.”

     She laughed softly. “Yes, you are a musical snob. You wouldn’t be my Eli if you weren’t. But people who know you, and know what you’ve been dealing with all your life, admire your love of life, your incredible courage, your artistry.”

     They moved even closer to each other, wanting to feel nothing could ever come between them. He said softly, “Having you in my life has meant the world to me, my love. If your universal being ... the Eternal ... did plan a path for me, I’m so thankful it included you.” He was quiet for a moment. “I hope I have more time. I think there are more things I’m supposed to do while I’m here.”

     For a few minutes, it seemed to them their hearts were beating almost as one. It was a lovely moment, and they drifted off to sleep filled with a sense of peace.

     **********

Eli's Heart is available on Amazon, paperback and Kindle. 

http://smarturl.it/elih 

cover by Tristan Flanagan

My Mother and the Prodigy

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom

     If you had met my mother when she was a poised, accomplished adult, wife of a Vice-President of Borg-Warner, you’d have most likely been very surprised to learn that she had grown up riding a horse on a working ranch near Norman, Oklahoma. And possibly even more surprised to learn she’d dealt with discrimination from a very young age, since her father was the son of a member of the Choctaw tribe. In other words, a “half-breed Indian.”

     At some point in what I laughably refer to as my adult life, I realized what an extraordinary woman had given birth to me, and I made a point of telling her how much I appreciated who she was. She married my dad the summer after her high school graduation (I realized eventually it was most likely a shotgun wedding) in the depths of the depression. I recall she took some college courses when I was in elementary school. She read constantly. She was one of the most observant people I knew, and because of that and her intelligence she remade herself as often as necessary to keep up with my dad’s rise in the corporate world. She was devoted to my father. She was the wife he needed; she kept a beautiful home; she was a gracious hostess.

     She was also an incredibly kind, witty, loving, nurturing, and considerate person. When writing Eli's Heart and recalling the friendship I enjoyed with Samuel Sanders the summer I was fifteen, I also remembered the role my mother played in that relationship.
     We met him one spring evening near the end of my sophomore year when he performed for our Junior Music Club while visiting his sister, who lived in my home town of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. His genius as a musician and pianist was apparent from the first notes he played, and everyone who was there that night was enthralled.

     When he returned for a longer visit during the summer he came to our house on several occasions. As I recall, he generally arrived in time for lunch. Mom and I were both aware of Samuel’s heart condition – one of the first things he told us was that he’d had an operation which took away the blue color from his lips and fingers, but that he wasn’t expected to live past the age of thirty. So we knew this extraordinary boy was dealing with two challenges, a bad heart and the burden of being a prodigy.

     We weren’t allowed to go outside, so I asked Mom what we could do to keep him entertained and happy while he was at our house. She wisely suggested I let him determine that. It turned out he liked playing piano duets with me, though heaven knows why. He also liked the copies of Sporting News and Sports Illustrated he spotted in the magazine rack, and he was delighted when I admitted those belonged to me.  He was a huge New York Yankees fan. We listened to baseball games on the radio, and he liked that I had a little knowledge of the game so could appreciate what was going on.

     He seemed to enjoy playing piano for me while I stood next to the piano and watched and listened. He played with such confidence, and the music seemed to pour out of him. Looking back now, it’s hard to believe this prodigiously gifted boy was seated at my piano, performing solo recitals for me.

     Mom’s biggest concern was making sure lunch was something he enjoyed, so she always offered a choice of sandwiches, salads, or soup. He always wanted grilled cheese: “And please don’t cut it in half.” He liked to rip the sandwich into sections and watch the melted cheese try to flow away from the fried bread. She also offered a choice of beverages, beginning with milk. Next was water. Last was soda, which was inevitably his choice. “I’d prefer Coke.” Dessert was always squares of Hershey’s chocolate, which was a staple in our house.

     She did comment after his second or third visit, “I wish he’d ask for something besides grilled cheese and Coke.” She was fine with the chocolate.

     On rare occasions we went out for ice cream, and I believe his sister initiated those outings. If you’ve read Eli’s Heart, you may recall Eli and Krissy had a banana-split-eating contest and Eli won. That’s drawn from life, and I’ve never even been able to look at a banana split since. I remember the two women laughing almost hysterically as they watched us try to inhale all that goop.

     Samuel seemed much younger than sixteen and I looked at him as a sweet, funny, slightly geeky little boy with this huge talent. Mom never said much, but she may have seen what I did not see – that he was most likely going through a late puberty and experiencing a lot of emotions I was totally unaware of. She said many nice things about him, but never suggested I should look at him differently or think of him as anything more than a good friend. Both my parents encouraged me to think for myself, to be my own person. Which meant making my own sometimes bad choices.

     After that summer I saw Samuel Sanders only one other time, when he returned some months later to perform with our local symphony orchestra. He played the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto – brilliantly, passionately. He’d also grown up. He wasn’t a little boy any more, but a poised and appealing young man. I think my extraordinary mother saw what this extraordinary boy was going to become.

     My book Eli’s Heart is not about Samuel Sanders, but it was inspired by the remarkable opportunity I had to enjoy a brief friendship with him. My mother, (Lillie) Erma McKee Moore, appears in the book as Lily Porter. And Lily definitely is my mother. I’m glad I had the foresight to preserve some of her wonderful qualities in the book.

Two Musicians

That Elusive Quality – Talent

     I recently described Jamie Logan, the young tenor in You Are My Song, to one of my readers as “an ordinary guy with an extraordinary talent.” Jamie has an unusually beautiful singing voice; he also has a good ear, which helps him learn music quickly and grasp language pronunciation well. By applying himself he learns to sightread music well, and to retain what he has learned. By virtue of more hard work, he understands those many languages he is expected to use in different operas. Jamie is also fortunate to be blessed with good looks and he is a good actor. As a singer aspiring for a career in opera, he has “the whole package.”

     It’s interesting to compare Jamie to Eli Levin, the protagonist of Eli’s Heart. Eli was born with a prodigious musical gift, so despite the complicated and frightening heart condition he was also born with, it’s a given that Eli will be a professional musician. The only question for Eli is how he will use his remarkable skill as a pianist: as a virtuoso, performing solo recitals and orchestral appearances? That is the manner in which most pianists endowed in this way spend their lives.

     Eli chooses instead to work with other musicians, as an accompanist or collaborator. The early part of the book includes descriptions of his battles with his mother over this choice. Because of who Eli is, with these dual challenges there is of necessity the sense of a fairy tale in his story. He’s different from most of us. He’s very different from most of us. He was performing professionally as a soloist at the age of twelve. When he is twenty-four, he’s completed his master of music degree and has embarked on a busy career as a collaborative artist that takes him all over the world.

     Jamie, on the other hand, starts his adult life with an associates’ degree in business and an early marriage that is in trouble. In high school he had enjoyed singing, and like most of us, sang in the school choirs and the high school musicals. Unlike Eli, Jamie has actually heard very little classical music until a voice teacher plays him a recording of a tenor singing a particularly beautiful and moving aria. Jamie is excited by what he hears to the point of wanting to go back to college at the age of twenty-three and eventually attempting a career in opera.

     Many professional opera singers don’t begin serious study until high school or even college, as opposed to instrumentalists who sometimes demonstrate talent and even genius at a very young age, as early as three or four. Serious singing requires muscular and mental development that doesn’t begin to take place until the mid-teens for most men, and the early to mid-teens for women.

     The difference between Jamie and Eli, it seems to me – and I know them better than anyone does – is how they perceive their talent. Eli has the ability to play anything to near perfection the first time he reads through it. Yet he practices hours on end, striving for absolute perfection. He has a very revealing moment in the book when talking with his psychiatrist (I think I did him a great service by putting Pete in his life):

     Eli was aware of how quiet it was in the room. They were high enough above the street so that traffic noise wasn’t audible.

     “You know something, Pete? Nobody ever asked me if I liked playing the piano. It came easily to me, and I could sight read anything, so everybody figured that’s what I should do. What else was I going to do?”

     Eli thought a minute. “I love music, Pete. I don’t mean to say that I don’t like playing piano, because really, I do. I’m hard on myself sometimes because I want it to be perfect. But when I’m working with another musician, it can be exciting to feel what’s happening.”

     Jamie, on the other hand, has come much later to music and the realization he might have a career as a performer. But he battles self-doubts, partly created by the early marriage that ended badly after only two years. More than once these doubts surface as Jamie works hard to become as good a performer as he possibly can. At one point his second wife asks him:

     “What do you want, Jamie? I mean what do you see as the fulfillment of your dream?” She was surprised she had never asked him this. She knew he wanted to sing. She wasn’t really sure what would make him feel he’d “made it.”

     He said without hesitating, “Singing Don José at the Met.” He looked a little troubled. “It may never happen. But I guess it’s good to have a goal, and that’s mine.”

     Just keep these in mind when you hear a gifted musician perform. No matter how gifted they are, how diligently they practice, how extraordinary they seem to us mere mortals, they’ve had moments similar to these in their lives. What they expect of themselves is even more than what we expect of them. It’s not an easy life. It can be immensely satisfying.