"Lunch's ready!" The oldest lady in the house exclaimed, one with enough white hair, but missing some wrinkles here and there to make her pass as a 60-year-old lady when she was already 70. She poked her head into the room the old man together with the kids were in.
"Aww! Great-aunt, can't you come for us later?!" The blonde boy said in broken English. The other kids nodded enthusiastically to his idea while the old man laughed.
"Well, you can stay here, but this old bag of bones will go eat. If I didn't know well, then I would think that I'm being starved." He laughed again, and the kids giggled.
"Dad! How can you say that?!" The old man kept laughing as he was helped by his daughter to stand up.
"Let's go group of hazards! You may not look forward lunch, but I tell you, you won't regret it once you're before it. Now, go wash your hands and then go to the living room." The throng of kids obeyed him.
The sumptuous meal left the kids amazed, and quickly looked for a spot near their grandpa to eat. It didn't matter if they stuck too close to each other since the table was long enough to accommodate the whole family comfortably.
The almost fifty members, kids included, sat at the table with the patriarch of the family sitting at the head. The place he always claimed whenever they celebrated his birthday.
It had been a long life for the old man, who was turning 93-years old that day. It not only gave him the family he had in front of him but many, many things more. His only regret was not being able to share that happiness together with his wife for a long time.
It had been sixty five years since he last felt her touch, heard her voice, saw her eyes and was loved by her. Sixty five years since she left him alone with their two kids. A girl and a boy.
How hard he worked to raise them without her, but it was all worth it. With the years, the family grew. Some times, he swore he saw her in the faces of the newborns, one feature here and there, either their eyes, their nose, their ears, their lips, their cheekbones, the rounded shape of their faces, or even the smile.
It hurt. But, more than that, he was delighted to be able to see her even when she was not there.
Such a long and rewarding life together with the sounds of his family chattering, laughing and crying with each other. Seeing how, year after year, a new member integrated the family, either in the form of children or in-laws. He was grateful for his big family, and he was even more grateful to the woman that made it possible even when she couldn't enjoy it how he had.
His beautiful wife, how he missed her.
His tired eyes turned to the frame above a mantle that had the one and only photo of them together.
She hated taking pictures of herself, but she loved taking pictures of their kids. That's why the only one she ever accepted to be taken was that one. One together with him and the two kids fruit of their short but passionate and undying love. She may be dead, but his love for her would never die. Not until he died, of course.
The constant yelling of the kids, telling him to continue the story took him out of his thoughts. He smiled. How he loved telling that story! The smirks and smiles of the older ones who already knew it expressed how eager they were to listen to it one more time, even when they already knew it by heart.
"Ok, ok, stop yelling, so where were we?" He asked, taking a bite of his extremely soft rice. His years didn't allow him to eat food that was too solid.
"They met each other again!" Said a girl with no front teeth, throwing her arms up.
"And they kissed!" Said another one with a giggle that the other kids shared.
"Kiss!" Repeated one of the youngest, a two-year-old boy who stamped his lips on his twin, making the whole table burst in laughter. The mother of the twins, sitting next to them, blushed embarrassed. The old man chuckled and continued narrating the story that happened way back in the past.
The lunch continued with his soft words filling the room. Everybody listened to the eldest of them all, the pillar of the whole family, the beginner of such a huge group of people that knew all too well how important the matriarch of the family was as the man never tired telling the story he claimed happened to a friend.
They knew all too well who the man and the woman in the story were.
"Ok, now that you've listened to this old man. You will appreciate art." At the end of the story, he took them to the room where he kept the most precious possessions in his life. Two pieces for a whole room. A room only him can enter when he pleases, that he alone cleans because they hold such an important meaning to him.
The possessions that began it all.
His whole life, his fame, his story, his love life.
With help from two of his many grandsons, his almost-copy Ja Ryung and another young man who had the same smile as his long deceased wife, Eadwyn, he reached the room at the end of the long hallway.
The old man knew the reason those two always accompanied him was because they had a connection with the stuff inside. They, same as the old man and his wife, played the instruments in that room. Piano and cello.
The black piano and the white cello stood in the big and well-illuminated room. They looked as good as new, as if years were nothing for them. As if they would remain forever young, like the young couple that played them years and years ago.
Every time he entered the room, he could hear it. The last opus they played together when they celebrated their sixth year together. Six years of a happy, simple and full of love life together with their kids, who at that time were 4 and 2 years old.
The same opus that brought them together, saw them apart. The opus they never shared with any other person that weren't family. At that time, the only family they had were each other and their kids, so it was quite an intimate opus. After that last time, he never played it again.
Just like the first time he played it, it felt wrong if he played it alone, so he never tried. He didn't want to.
Sixty five years of not playing or listening to that opus. The opus they ended up calling Chords of Life, named by her because it meant a new life for both, a life far away from all the things that kept them tied.
She basically had no ties. The only one she kept was the one that took her away from him. That they both knew the day would come, didn't mean he had liked it. It hurt him so much he got depressed for almost a year, and the only thing that kept him going was that he promised her to raise their kids.
He also promised her he would join her when it was the right time. Not any year, month, day, hour, minute or second before.
The only ties he had were his parents. The same that disowned him the day he presented her as his girlfriend. Of course, he couldn't tell them they were going to become grandparents because they all but threw them out of their house. Instead of feeling sad or hurt, he felt free.
He realized he didn't need them. All he needed was the woman beside him, and the child growing inside her. He didn't even mourn them when he read about their deaths on the newspapers.
They moved to the countryside, in China. They worked as farmers and anonymous composers. Because they wanted to keep doing what they loved and got them together. Their life together was simple, yet they didn't struggle. She had to teach him Chinese as it was impossible their neighbors could speak English.
"Grandpa, it's time for your presents." Ja Ryung announced, taking the old man out of his thoughts. He looked at him and Eadwyn, then he looked around and found the kids were gone. Ja Ryung laughed. "They were called for dessert. They ran away while you were daydreaming. Thinking about your wife being naughty?" The young man wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.
"Respect this old man!" He punched the laughing youngster. "But, if you so want to know, we did it almost everyday." It was the old man's turn to laugh thanks to the grimaces the two youngsters made at his words.
"Come on, grandpa. Everybody is waiting for you." Eadwyn said with the smile the old man could never grow tired of.
They took him to the pavilion at the back of the house where everybody was already waiting for him. They made him sit on a special seat prepared for him up in the pavilion where a piano and a cello rested. He looked at the youngsters with a frown on his face. All he got back were grins from both.
"Grandpa, I know you will hate me, us, for what we're going to do. After years of listening to your story and, in a way, make us get into the world of music, we decided to express our thanks for everything you've done for us. You are our inspiration. And, it's thanks to you that we got scholarships to an international university." Ja Ryung began.
"We wanted to go to the same University you went back when you were young, but we are not as good you were and we couldn't get in." Eadwyn continued. The old man chuckled. It wasn't that they weren't good. The University had elevated its standards to impossible levels.
Hardworking students like his grandsons couldn't obviously compared to real geniuses the university only accepted. However, the scholarships they got were from another prestigious university, and he was still proud of them.
To follow the path of music was not easy. Many of his grandchildren played instruments as a hobby, never as a career. So, he was extremely surprised to hear the two were getting a career in music because of him and his wife. Their legacy was not over after all, and a big smile came to his face for that.
Both teens took their places in each instrument. It was really curious to the old man to know that Ja Ryung's piano was white while Eadwyn's cello was black. They surely wanted to honor him and his wife on their own way, and he inwardly thanked them for not picking the same colors.
After playing a few notes to check if the instruments were perfectly tuned, they looked at each other, and then began to play.