From my second grade on, there was oneevent I feared every year; the piano recital(独奏演唱会).A recital 1 I had to practice a boring piece of music and performbefore strangers. Each year I 2ask my father if I could skip therecital “just this once”. And each year he'd shake his head, muttering(嘀咕) 3about building self－confidence and working towards a 4.
So it was with really great5that I stood in church one recent Sunday, videocamera in hand, and 6my 68－year－old father sweating in his shirt 7risingto play the piano in his very first recital.
My father had longed to play music since childhood, but his family was poor andcouldn't 8 lessons. He could have gone on regretting it, 9toomany of us do. But though he was rooted in his past, he wasn't10there.When he retired three years ago, he 11 his church music director totake him as a student.
For a moment after my father sat down at the keyboard, he 12stared downat his fingers. Has he forgotten the 13？ I worried, remembering those splitseconds14ago when my mind would go blank and my fingers would 15.But then came the beautiful melody(旋律)，from the 16fingers thatonce baited(装饵于)my fishing lines. And I17he had been doing what music teachersalways stress：18themusic and pretend the others aren't there.
“I'm19of him for starting something new at his age，” I said to my son Jeff.
“Yeah,and doing it so20 ， ”Jeff added.
With his first recital, my father taught me more about courage and determinationthan all the words he used those 30－plusyears ago.
