Come Blow Your Horns

If music was my destiny, then why was God taking it away?

- Brian Cade

FOR MORE THAN 10 YEARS, I kept a painful secret. I told no one—not even my wife, Ronda. The secret was my love of music. Not just listening. Playing. Making a living with my instrument. Closing my eyes and becoming one with a piece of music.

I’d done all of that once. After learning classical piano and trumpet as a child, I thought I’d found my calling, playing around the world in the U.S. Army Band.

It was a dream come true. Until I was abruptly discharged during the post– Cold War drawdown of forces. The loss of my job came right as my second marriage was falling apart.

I loved music and felt betrayed by all that happened. I’d grown up in a military family. What would I do now? Crushed, I vowed never to play again. I returned my Army-issued trumpet and began a financial planning career.

I didn’t even tell Ronda about my musical past when we met and married years later. I kept things vague: “I was in the Army nine years. Served in the first Iraq War. Honorable discharge from my last post in Fairbanks.”

A few years after marrying, Ronda and I were visiting my parents in Texas when my mom asked, “Play something for me, Brian.” She still had the piano I’d played as a kid.

The request threw me. Mom had never taken an interest in my music. She and Dad didn’t play and disliked classical and jazz. They certainly didn’t approve of music as a career. They were relieved when I’d put down the trumpet and found a “real” job. Mom hung on to the piano because she thought it made the house look respectable. I probably could have let her comment slide.

For some reason, I sat down at the keyboard. My fingers hovered over the keys, as if ready to play. A strange sensation came over me. I closed my eyes. Years of memory and longing gathered in my hands.