The Piano Begins Again-1

“Piano  you are master of harmony

world ambassador of peace

your language without words

speaks the music of Earth

From your strings made from fire

to your body made from forest

you resonate with sound”

–Mary Jo Balistreri, Ode to the Piano

By three-thirty on Tuesday afternoon, the outpatient hall begins to quiet down.

The morning rush has passed. Patients who came for blood tests have dispersed into wards and waiting rooms. Family members who spent the morning navigating appointments finally find a place to sit.

It is also the hottest part of the day. The hospital lobby is designed with air conditioning, but years of use have taken their toll. Part of the cooling system no longer works, and repairing it would require dismantling sections of the ceiling—something impossible in a hospital that never truly stops operating. In the heat of midsummer, even sitting still is enough to make people sweat.

Yet amidst the crowd, there was a figure who sat unperturbed, her fingers strolling on black and white keys. Playing the piano is another matter entirely. "You have to concentrate," Ms. Cao tells me with a smile. The more focused you are, the hotter you feel." Still, every Tuesday afternoon, she comes.

Ms. Cao spent most of her working life teaching medicine. After retirement, she began learning the piano. Most people pick up an instrument to entertain themselves. She learned hers to comfort strangers. For the past two years, she has volunteered at Jiangxi Cancer Hospital, joining a small group of musicians who perform every Tuesday in the hospital lobby. "There isn't any payment," she said matter-of-factly, "It's purely voluntary. The hospital gives us two things only: the piano and a bottle of Nongfu Spring." Then she added something almost as important, "It brings happiness to us too. If we have time, we will come." There is no obligation. Only willingness.

When the music began, people rarely applauded. Instead, they stopped. Some leaned against the railings. Others remained seated in wheelchairs. Nurses walking past slowed their pace. Patients receiving intravenous infusions glanced toward the piano. All the eyes were fixed upon her. The melodies were familiar. The Moon Represents My Heart, Farewell, Butterfly Lovers—popular Chinese songs. Pieces gentle enough to blend into the rhythms of the hospital rather than interrupt them. The pianist did not pretend to be serious as well. Sometimes she stuttered, squinting at the densely annotated scores. Sometimes she started the song all over again. Sometimes she paused, asking whether they wanted to play or sing along. The music was an organic component of the hospital ecology, and so was she. 

"People tell us," Ms. Cao said, "'When I listen to the music, I forget what I'm suffering from.'" Only for a little while, but sometimes a little while is enough. She believed music works because it changes attention, "If you spend all day thinking about your illness," she explained, "the burden only becomes heavier." The music gives patients something else to think about. They beat time with the rhythm as if indwelling needles have vanished. Another volunteer once shared a similar thought with her. Many volunteers visit patients at their bedsides, talking to them about treatment, encouraging them through their own experiences, reminding them not to lose hope (see #2 Ode to the "Nightingale"). "That's one way," Ms. Cao said, "Music is another." Words comfort through conversation. Music comforts without asking anyone to speak.

Over the years, she has watched patients return after several rounds of chemotherapy. Sometimes she notices someone looking healthier. "The tumor has become smaller," she said. "Their mood improves too." She knew the piano is not medicine. It cannot shrink a tumor. But she has seen what happens when fear loosens its grip, even briefly, "A good mood helps." She repeated the sentence quietly, as though reminding herself as much as anyone else.

Volunteering has become part of her retirement. On Thursdays, she joins another team at a different hospital. Sometimes music teachers bring their students. Sometimes children perform. Everyone contributes what they can. "There are more volunteers now," she told me, "When we first started, there weren't many. Now people are more willing."

After a round of performance, Ms. Cao was also drenched in sweat. She took off her volunteer vest. “It does not breathe. It’s uncomfortable,” she said. I asked her why she continues coming in the middle of summer, carrying sheet music into a hospital where even the air conditioners struggle against the heat. She paused only briefly, "It makes patients happy." Then she laughed, "And it makes us happy too." For Ms. Cao, volunteering is not a sacrifice. It is simply another way of living after retirement—a way to transform years of learning medicine into something less clinical but no less healing. 

Every Tuesday afternoon, when the first notes echo across the hospital lobby, patients pause, nurses slow their steps, and conversations soften. For a few minutes, the hospital sounds less like a place defined by illness and more like a concert hall. The treatments continue upstairs. The diagnoses do not disappear. But somewhere between one melody and the next, the music offers what medicine alone often cannot: a brief moment in which people stop thinking about cancer and simply listen.