Hiding Beauty
When we hide the truth from ourselves, we are hiding the most beautiful part of us.
Bina’s mother Susan loves music. When she found out that she was pregnant, she would let her baby listen to music every day. Her husband would often tease, “that child is going to speak music language before she could talk.”
For the first six years of her life, Susan did everything with her baby girl musically. The music teachers refuse to take any student under six years old, musically inclined, or not. As Bina grew, she lost interest in all things musical. That creates constant conflicts with her mother. Her father often was the referee. Her grandmother defends, “leave my grandchild alone. She is fourteen years old. Let her chart her own course in life. She is young, and she needs your guidance to help her make the right choices and decisions, not your bullyism. She must live her dream, not yours. She will find her way back if she wants to continue doing anything musically.”
With her entire family, including her husband, opposed her forcing her daughter to continue taking music lessons, she eases back and allows her to make her own choice. Praying and hoping that she would make the right ones. Bina went on to be the fourteen-year-old she wants to be, living the life she wants with the love and guidance of her family.
Four years later, at graduation practice, a few of her classmates were playing around on the stage with the microphone, singing off-key and off-tune. Bina walks up and attempts to take the microphone from Lisa, when one of the music teachers nearby said, “You aren’t musically inclined, nor can you sing, so don’t try.”
Bina stops, rage fills her eyes as she stares at Miss Bell, suddenly she heard a match strikes against sulfur. Glancing around, she saw smoke as the smell of sulfur engulfs her. It took a second for her to realize that the smoke was emitting from her body. She grabbed the microphone from her classmate, walks to the piano nearby, rests the microphone on the top, sits on the stool facing the piano, then started nibbling with the ivories. One eye on the piano and the other at the unwilling audience. After grabbing their attention, she took the microphone up and start singing the graduation song, playing the piano with one hand.
For the next few minutes, she played and sang as if she was fighting to get out of the darkness.
When the song ended and the light broke through, everyone in the auditorium gave her a standing ovation.
Reading the shock in their eyes and on their faces, she said, “Thank you Miss Bell for reigniting the flames that my mother started before I was born. Mom, I know you are here, did you know that my name Bina means: A Musical Instrument?”
A familiar voice in the audience says, “No honey. I had a dream before you were born. A beautiful Indian-looking woman with four hands playing an unusual-looking long guitar said I should name you Bina.”
“Her name is Sarasvati, she is the Hindu goddess of learning and the arts, especially music,” Bina informs. “I found out by accident when one guy who was setting up the stage I am on now, heard Lisa calling my name. He wanted to know if I could sing or play any musical instruments like the meaning of my name. I told him I hate music,” she pauses as many eyes stare at her. “He said, ‘I don’t think so, because your mother gave you that name for a reason.’”
Silence waits along with many others, not even a breath or a heartbeat could be heard.
Bina inhales, then exhales, then releases, “He said, ‘When we hide the truth from ourselves, we are hiding the most beautiful part of us.’”
Tears need no direction as her mother rushes on the stage and hugs her daughter saying, “Whoever he is, I thank him. Did you get his name?”
“He said his name was Malachi,” Bina said.
A voice close by alerts, “My team and I set up this stage, and none of them is named Malachi. And since we are on names and meanings, Malachi means messenger of God!”
How about you, do you deny yourself of the truth?
This piece is dedicated to all mothers and women everywhere. Happy Women’s Day to all females everywhere.
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https://mediumauthor.com/@thisisanneliselords
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