Commentary: As we get older, increasing loss is the lay of the land. But at 75, I made a surprising gain

One thing about getting older is that increasing loss is the lay of all the land. Loss of nimble limbs, incremental hearing loss, cataracts (of course). Loss of friends, of family, of famous icons we grew up alongside. It’s such a steady, relentless beat. It doesn’t (yet) take away the dance, but it changes the steps, forcing the dancer to adjust the tap and shuffle.

I’m often inclined to just stand still, thinking maybe in the stillness the loss will slow, or even stop.

The idea to take up the cello at 75 was born in that stillness. It seemed like it could be a timely distraction, a way to adjust to Slow, a way of connecting the dots of a lifetime of casual musical engagement — piano, violin, choir. The instrument’s reputation as melancholic a complement to the sorrows, even.

I used to play violin as a hobby — more as a fiddle and rarely in public. But I broke my left wrist falling down a flight of concrete steps at 70, and the violin became its own kind of loss. The hand surgeon was terrific, offering options: the easy fix, which would leave the hand listless, or the aggressive fix that would require immobility followed by disciplined exercise for a year, but, if done correctly, would allow me to regain nearly full use of my hand.

“If you were 90, we’d take the easy way. If you were 40, we’d insist on the hard way. But you’re in between, so you need to choose, you have to want that,” he told me. His approach motivated me. I chose the hard way. I fought the loss.

But even with all the work of repair and recovery, my left hand could never loosen up to twist properly around the neck of the violin, not for long enough to get a jig going. My instrument became a thing I lent to younger friends, or kept in the living room on a stand, a tombstone of sorts, honoring the heartbreak I could barely admit.

Then last fall I flew to Nashville to spend a weekend with friends from my beginnings, gathered to celebrate an 80th birthday. It was jolly and amazing and really hard, all at the same time. A chance to sway to bluegrass birthday tunes out in a field and a stark reminder of the accumulation of loss. So many people missing. Lots of new walkers and wheelchairs. More than a few of us fraying cognitively.

Interestingly, several old friends inquired about the violin. I shared the broken hand story to explain its absence. In this crowd, sympathy was easy to come by. But one person, without missing a beat, replied with “What about the cello? No twisting of the wrist, your hand just goes up and down the neck, still four fretless strings, easy peasy!”

I usually overthink decisions, making columns of pros and cons, checking out library books for a deep dive into history and context. But upon returning home, I called the place where I used to take the violin for repairs and within a day, cello, case, bow and rosin were in the house. And within a day of all that, I found a teacher blocks away from me.

For the past six months, I’ve walked down Vermont Avenue most Sunday afternoons to Silverlake Conservatory of Music, cello slung like a backpack. The learning is both harder and more seductive than I or my “easy peasy” friend had predicted.

I can barely do anything that approaches music yet. Still, the cello is magic. Surely all instruments are, each its own miracle of math and physics and intuition. Finding the right note is more about touch than seeing.

My accomplished teacher, Derek — son of a cellist and himself a cellist all his life — says, again and again: “To find the note you seek on those fretless strings, learn your tendency, and correct for it. Trust your feelings.”

So, fine, adjust to the losses. Just know that adding on to whatever is left seems to be a fundamental human drive, hard to hinder. It’s the cello that’s in my living room now.

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Margaret Ecker is a retired nurse and a second soprano in the Ebell Chorale in Los Angeles.

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