Brilliant … But Bouncy

They Were Playing Canon.

When I was a teenager, Quinton married Nola. As I recall, they married outdoors, high on the red cliffs of a glorious mountain. Pachelbel’s Canon in D played as Nola glided forth in her gown, to finally wed the man of her – and my – dreams, in a wedding that will live in my mind for the rest of time.

That wedding is also on YouTube – because it’s completely fictitious, created for the now defunct soap opera, The Guiding Light. I watched it on YouTube, and it turns out that Nola and Quinton were married in a very traditional church ceremony, and she walked down the aisle to Here Comes the Bride. I was wrong about nearly everything.

But I remembered one thing correctly: Pachelbel’s Canon in D. The song was dubbed in by the show’s sound editors as the bride and groom kissed and glided out of the church. I’d never heard the song before that day, and didn’t know what it was called – but I remembered the tune, and got a little thrill every time I heard it thereafter.

I’m not one of those people who daydreamed about a perfect wedding day. I never even thought much about it until I got engaged. But I wanted that song in my wedding.

Fast forward 16 years: my now-husband and then-fiancé Bill, not only knew the song but recognized it immediately when I hummed a bit. Then he pulled out a CD from his eclectic collection and played it for me.

A few months later, Canon started our wedding ceremony.

Fast forward another 16 years: I went to the bank one day, and came home to a familiar tune. I walked in and saw my two angelic boys, side by side on the piano bench.

Together, they were playing Canon.

Dylan taught himself to play the song – and then taught Shane to play the melody for a derivative song called Christmas Canon. The song sounded perfect.

I stood there for a moment, listening. I thought about Nola and Quinton and the dream life I’d imagined only briefly, so many years ago. I remembered hearing that song over the years, long before I’d met Bill, when marriage seemed like it would never happen. And I remembered the song starting to play on a gorgeous summer’s day, as my bridesmaids strolled through the grass to stand near my groom under a huge oak tree, where we were married.

And here I was, listening to my two babies – my angels, created by God and formed through a deep, caring bond – playing this glorious love song on our piano, in our home, making beautiful music together, making an awesome memory for me.

And I cried the same tears of joy I cried back in 1983, before any of this was ever real.