To an Eternal Rest
December 3, 1872 very near midnight
Above my head lay my dying father. I was only 13 when I lost my father during that terrible, brutal winter. The room was lit by a mere candle light. Monsieur Jamon had told my "mother", Madame Harris and myself, Leia Valois, that he would probably not make it through the night. I'm not sure what killed him, but he had been suffering for a long time.
I lay on the cold hard floor…above me my dying father in what could be his death bed. Madame Harris hadn't previously allow me to lie before my father's bed, but with news that this could be his last night, she allow me to. Therefore, I lay on the floor, with nothing but a scratchy old blanket and an unstuffed pillow that Monsieur Jamon had given me.
I didn't know what to think, with my father dying. Madame Harris had recently told me that she would no longer be able to care for me after my father died. Where would I go? Would be married off? Oh the horrors of the second option! I could already see Madame Harris eying a candidate, a candidate whom I despised. Monsieur Jean, a young carpenter in the outskirts of Paris, he was arrogant and unappreciative of the art of music, an art I loved and adored.
My father had played the violin before I died…and he had taught me to sing. I have been singing since I was very young. Unfortanely my father never found his break before his death. But my thoughts were interrupted by my father's now faint voice.
"Leia, are you still up?"
"Father?"
"Come here for a second darling.
"Remember the stories I used to tell you girls of the Angel of Music?" I nodded my head. When we lived by the sea in Germany, he told me and the other girls at the music school of the Angel of Music. I could see that he vaguely remembered it.
The story went that if a young musician was passionate about their music, someday, the Angel of Music would appear to them. However, if the children were naughty, and did not practice their scales he would not appear to them until much later. I was certain he had appeared to my father at sometime or another. How else did he know so much of the angel?
"I want to let you know, that when I reach Heaven," he said, reaching his hand up to touch my cheek, "that I will tell him of you, and will send him to you." It brought tears to my eyes to hear him talk of heaven, the thought of his impending death scared me. But it also brought me joy to know that perhaps, I too, would be sent the Angel of Music.
"Truthfully, my child," he continued, "I myself have never been visited by the angel. I only speak of what other musicians that have have told me." This, too, pained me to hear him say. My father, the great Lorenzo Valois, had never been visited by the Angel of Music! It pained me to hear. "However," he continued, "I shall make sure he is sent to you, my daughter."
Those were his last words.