I took my piano teacher to lunch. I was with her every Wednesday from six to eighteen, EVERY Wednesday, learning the skills, the songs, the emotions of music. Modern, classical, jazz, 26-page concertos from memory, composing, intuitive improvisation; together we conquered it all.

I took her to lunch, this mentor, friend, practically a third parent. I was forty. I left for college and stayed on the other side of the country. Some holiday cards, maybe a call or two over the years.

We had lunch. It started with a warm hug, but somewhere, in the middle of my salad, I experienced the feelings of your essay, the kenopsia, with her. “Do you remember me?” I asked. She paused, wiped her lips with a napkin, and put her hands down. This indelible force in my life looked me in the eyes and said, “I think I remember your smile.”

It never occurred to me I was one of thousands of students. It never occurred to me I was a fraction of a fraction of her side-hustle, that she also had her church, her own performances, her other jobs, her family, her friends, pets, travel, houses and renovations and bills and gardens and history—her own long life.

We own nothing—they don’t put pockets in coffins—but she has the fleeting remembrance of my smile, I have a decade of profound education, and where our paths did cross we both took and gave… and grew.

Thank you for your essay.