The One

I always tell myself before a performance, “Even if this just helps one person, it’s worth it.”

I recently started volunteering at Renown Hospital in Reno. On the first Monday of each month, I play piano in the lobby for an hour, and I absolutely love it. I’ve already seen how much a simple piece of music can lift someone’s spirits.

Maybe it’s a healthcare worker coming off their first shift in the OR, completely overwhelmed. Maybe it’s a patient battling terminal cancer. Maybe it’s someone sitting in the lobby waiting for news about a relative. Whatever brings someone into a hospital, chances are they could use a little beauty in the middle of it.

During my first performance, I noticed a man in a wheelchair sitting with his parents. I only had a brief look at the three of them, but I could sense something very heavy. There was sadness, strain, and pure exhaustion on their faces.

Hospitals can be strange places. They are marketed as places of healing and hope, but they are also places where people can receive some of the most devastating news of their lives.

The three of them stayed and listened to me play for thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes.

I don’t think I’ve ever had someone stay that long while I was playing in a lobby. And as I watched them, I could see that something had changed. They seemed a little more relaxed. Maybe, for those thirty minutes, they were able to forget where they were.

I began thinking about all of the people who pass through those doors every day—the patients, the nurses and doctors, the parents, spouses, children, and siblings. So many people carrying things that I will never know about.

And I thought about the one.

I always come back to that idea before I perform. I do it for the one person.

The one who is scared.

The one who is exhausted.

The one waiting for test results.

The one who hasn't slept.

The one who just needs something beautiful that day.

I may never know who that person is. I may never know what they were thinking about when they sat down, or what they were carrying when they walked through the hospital doors.

But if even one person is touched by the music, then it was worth it.

The practicing. The planning. The programs. The business cards. The drive to and from the hospital. The long lunch break my husband has to take to watch the baby. Even showing up on the days when I don’t particularly feel like it.

It’s worth it for the one.

I’ll probably never know what those thirty minutes meant to that man and his parents. Maybe the music helped. Maybe it was simply something to listen to while they waited. 

But I know they stayed. And I know that’s enough.

Taken by Adobestock/Gareth