Life Made Me a Flute

On the eve of my ninetieth birthday,
as midnight struck—
December holding its breath—
I turned inward and asked
the simplest, hardest question:
How do I summarize a life?

No answer came.
Only silence.
So I waited.

Morning arrived, empty-handed.
Another day passed.
Still nothing.
I reminded myself—
patience has always been
one of my truest teachers.

Then, the following day,
a friend spoke casually of her own dream,
and something stirred,
a faint vibration in the depths of memory.
It carried me back—

to a six-year-old child
in the hills of India,
standing utterly still
as a flute sent its music
flowing through the valley.

The sound entered me
before language,
before knowing.
And in that instant I decided:
When I grow up,
I will live in the hills
and play the flute every evening.

That was my dream.

At fifteen, I tried to learn.
One lesson only.
No training followed.
No flute.
No music.
The dream dissolved,
quietly, without ceremony.

That night, the question returned, reshaped:
What became of that child
who wanted to be the flute player?

I woke near four in the morning,
the hour when truth speaks softly.
And then came a voice
I have learned to trust—
clear, certain, effortless.

It said:
Life turned you into a flute.

The words moved through my body
as a shiver of recognition.
Nothing more was needed.
The answer was complete.

Life had played me into being—
every act a note,
every loss a rest-,
every joy a breath of music.

I rose and danced a small, grateful jig.

For this is the essence:
as a child, I longed to play the flute.
Instead, life shaped me into one,
breathing its song through me—
through joys and losses,
through sound and silence.

What I sought was never missing.
It was always there:
a life, patiently fashioned into music.