Jane, the violinist

My late Grandma was the matriarch of our family.. a family of very strong women, and many of us.. women who love nothing more than gathering and spending time together. My Uncle always called it the ‘Hen party.’ We could spend the whole day at my Gram’s (or anywhere) and still take an hour to make our rounds to say goodbye, as if we hadn’t just spent the entire day chatting.

Matt always referred to another Uncle of mine as Houdini. Houdini would always drive separate from my Aunt, and when none of the Hens were watching, he’d quietly depart without a single one of us noticing. Every single time and still does it to this day. Matt always questioned how much time he had to put in to have the honor of leaving the Hen party early. We’d been together over 20 years and I never gave him the chance hahaha I always made him drive with me so he couldn’t slip out the back door. He never once complained.

We would go to my Gram’s to celebrate after the celebration. Example, our wedding. We had the most picture perfect wedding. Even things that didn’t go right, were right, because it was our day. It was magical in so many ways. So 24 hours after our wedding, the Hens gathered together in my Gram’s family room to recount and relive the day.

Let me back up for a sec- I wanted a violinist to play as I walked down the aisle. As a twenty something who had a very low budget, I called Case Western Reserve’s music department and got in contact with a masters student violinist. I’ll call her Jane. Jane was kind and professional. We only spoke through email- several months of conversation prior to the wedding. Picked ‘the’ song and moved forward with the million other details of planning a wedding. Jane was all set to go and the envelope of cash was given to my most trusty cousin to pay her so I didn’t have to worry about it on our wedding day.

The day after our wedding, Matt and I sat and talked through every little detail of our day. I told him how much I loved the violin playing as my Dad walked me down the aisle, how beautiful she sounded, but that I never actually saw or met her. Without skipping a beat, Matt said, ‘I wasn’t expecting her to be an old Asian lady.’ I whipped my head around and said, ‘wait, what?’ We went back and forth because it never occurred to me she’d be anything other than a young white female. Didn’t matter, shocked was all. How you have a picture in your head of someone but they turn out to be totally different in real life. Sort of a ‘hmm’ and head tilt moment. Asian was not how I envisioned her, and certainly not old. Water under the bridge and on we went recounting our day.

At my Gram’s later that evening, my Mom, my cousins, Aunts, and Uncles sat in the family room. The spotlight was on me much the same as the day before, and I expressed how surprised I was when Matt told me the violinist was an old Asian lady. How her name and our conversations didn’t align with her being Asian, but how beautifully and eloquently she played the violin… *you could hear a pin drop in that room.* Everyone was staring at me as if I had five heads. Finally, my cousin Allison said confused and loudly, ‘She wasn’t old. And she wasn’t Asian.’ I was shocked and silent. I quickly looked over at Matt whose shoulders were rolling up and down, hand over his mouth giggling, wouldn’t make eye contact with me. The whole room of cackling hens busted out laughing so loud you could’ve heard us a mile down the road. Like, why would he say that??? Hahahahahaha He got me real good.

The other night I was flipping through our wedding album and there sat the perfect image of Jane. Young, dove skinned, petite female with curly reddish hair and her perfectly placed violin under her chin. Exactly as I envisioned her. I laughed. I’m laughing now. He got me real good. It’s a story my Mom and I still laugh about often. Jane, the ‘old, Asian violinist..’

Thank you, Jane, for playing such a large role in our most special, magical day. You’ve brought endless amounts of laughter to this little Hen.