Prologue
❛Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.❜
- Pele.
They told me that I was destined to be someone who could make a difference in the worldbut nobody told them that I was destined to what I chose in my life. I might sound like an ungrateful bastard or a snobbish douchebag, but this was the truth. I was destined to be on stage but not with the piano, but with my simple guitar,my choice.I also wanted a life that was completely ordinary without anyone coming up to me to compliment my piano skills.
“Mommy, why did you choose piano out of all the instruments?” I asked my beautiful mom, Evangeline, as her breeze colored eyes met mine with warmth.
“Your grandmother taught me. Shehas this large piano back in Michigan School and she believed in me just the way I believed in you.” She replied with a kiss on my cheek when we sat on the piano bench.
Her soothing fingers played so swiftly with eyes like the stars as she devotedly closed her eyes to hear the melodies of her heart. Her face completely relaxed with a small soft smile on her face, that was how I remembered mom always, with a serene passion inside of her.
“Come on, play with me, darling.” She tenderly ordered, my 9-year-old fingers placed on the piano keys completing her Frederic Chopin, “March Funèbre” that filled the empty music hall, where she had her first audition in Juilliard University, with nothing but complete euphoria.
“Hey, Xavier, are you feeling okay?” Mrs. Gilbert,my piano coach, asked me. Ever since I had been practicing less, I had been scolded one too many times by Mrs. Gilbert.She was the first leading pianist in Juilliard and she received noble awards for playing in orphanages.
“Yes, Mrs. Gilbert, just peachy,” I replied as my fingers played the classical Claude Debussy, “Clair de lune” and I missed that same note again, I stopped and looked sheepishly at Mrs. Gilbert who tutted at me for failing to play faster.
My hands were playing the piano, but my mind was somewhere else. Somewhere with freedom.
After that last moment between me and her, the old lady-Mrs. Gilbert- died with an expectation from me to replace her as the leading pianist.
I knew I had to do this for my parents, for Mrs. Gilbert and for all the people that believed in me.
