Dawn's Notes
Listen To The Music - January 2026
by Dawn Phelps, RN/LMSW
I am a grandma, and I love seeing photos and videos of my grandchildren and my greats! When my little great grandson Ellis was almost 6 months old, my granddaughter sent me a video of Ellis lying on a pad on his tummy, and the pad played music as Ellis pushed on it in the right spots. Ellis knew how to make the pad work, and it played some slower music and some peppier tunes. When the peppier music began to play, Ellis moved more and more, kicking his legs, faster and faster. It was obvious he felt the music and the rhythm which made him want to respond! After watching the little video several times, I wrote my granddaughter a note telling that I am so happy that it looks like Ellis already loves music like many of our family does.
I read a story several years ago that reminds me of Baby Ellis and music. The Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize for a feature story by Gene Weingarten in April, 2007. Here’s it is.
“A man sat at a metro station in Washington, D.C., and started to play the violin. It was a cold January morning. Three minutes went by, and a middle-aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace, stopped for a few seconds, and then hurried to meet his schedule.
“A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip; a woman threw the money in the till. Without stopping, she continued to walk. A few minutes later, a man momentarily leaned against the wall to listen to the violinist. But the man soon looked at his watch and walked away. Clearly, he was late for work.
“The one who paid the most attention was a three-year-old boy. His mother tried to nudge him along, but the child kept stopping to listen to the music. Finally, the mother pushed hard. The child continued to walk but kept turning his head to watch the violinist play. Several other children tried to stop to listen, but all the parents without exception forced their children to move on.
In the forty-five minutes the musician played, only six people stopped and stayed for a while. Some gave him money but continued to walk their normal paces. He collected a total of $32. When he finished playing, silence took over, but no one noticed it. There was no recognition, no applause.
“In the forty-five minute concert, the violinist played six pieces by Bach while thousands of people passed through the station. No one knew that the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written on a violin worth 3.5 million dollars. Two days before playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out all the seats in a theatre in Boston; the seats averaged $100 each.
“This is a real story. Joshua Bell’s incognito performance in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste, and priorities. The outlines were: In a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?
“One of the possible conclusions from this experiment could be: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?”
In the above true story, the children, rather than their parents, seemed to realize that something great was going on right under their noses. But the parents all hustled their children along.
After a loss, in a sense, it may feel that the music has stopped in our lives. The pain of grief and loss can, in a sense, dull the “music” that may be around us every day. Life may even feel hopeless and purposeless, at least initially.
Sometimes we too, like those at the metro station, live our lives at such break-neck paces that we scarcely take time to appreciate the beauty in the world. Maybe it is time to slow down, pause, and look for opportunities to “listen to the music” in 2026. Wishing you a blessed new year!
“Where words fail, music speaks.”
George Eliot
Call about the next "Living Life after Loss" Group at:
Meadowlark Hospice
709 Liberty, Clay Center, Kansas
(785) 632-2225
Dawn Phelps, RN/LMSW, Group Facilitator