Memory is a strange thing. It loses things that seem so important at the time and holds onto trivia that you were sure you'd forget by tomorrow. So much vanishes into the mist of the past. The sights of my home long gone, the names of the neighbors who lived there, the things that I did with them, all these have vanished into the past. Oddly enough it is the music that remains.

The people who performed it are all gone, save a few I knew very well. If I ever knew their names, I've forgotten. The places where I heard it too have slipped away. The names of the songs, of the composers, all are gone. The tunes remain.

A few of the names stick with me, not because of the names themselves, but because of the bright record covers that impressed my childish mind. Firebird was my favorite. The cover had a picture of a brilliant red and orange bird with wings and claws outstretched. The music was strange and dark and exciting. One memory that stands out vividly among the faded recollections of the past is of a particular night when, by the light that the old fashioned tape player shed when you turned it on, my younger brother and I danced an almost pagan dance to the wild music with the volume knob turned all the way up.

I often put a tape of a record on after dark just to see the way the little light threw a distorted square of yellow color over the carpet of our living room floor. Even then I loved the darkness. The way the whole world was quiet, as if there was no one but me left in the world. During the painful days when I came home from school and cried on my mother's lap while she tried to comfort me by telling me that it had been like this for her too, and it would get better when I was older, I wished my night fantasy was true. If I was alone and the whole world belonged only to me then there would be no one to hurt me. Other children hid from monsters in the dark, but I would have preferred the monsters to the company of those same children during the daylight.

Even that has faded now. Oh I still recall the hurt. It will never entirely go away. But the children who tormented me have no name or faces now. They are like ghosts, whispering words that you can no longer understand. What was it they said to make me cry? I don't know, I only know that there were tears.

At night the music banished tears. The wild songs, the Firebird, the others like it, they gave me power over the dark. But they were not the only songs I heard in the night. There were also my father's songs. If I had ever feared the dark, those sweet sounds would have banished fear. I have long lost the names and faces of those who played the other songs, but every song I have heard my father play I know as his. I can recall how he looked, standing in front of his music stand, playing the French horn that was his pride and joy. The expression of concentration when it was difficult, the expression of joy when it was just right, the funny was he sort of puckered to get just the right sound, these I will never forget. But most of all I remember the sound of it.

A French horn has a sound like no other instrument on earth. It is richer than a trumpet, clearer than a trombone, more beautiful than any angelic harp could be. And my father played it with a skill and a pure joy in music that few others can match. A snatch of conversation overheard, no memory of who said it. "He could have played in the symphony, but…"

I couldn't count the nights that I fell asleep listening to the beautiful notes of a horn concerto or a movement from a symphony.

Some things never change, but some things cannot stay the same. The music my father played has differed only a little over the years. The music in the house at other times has changed greatly since the days when my brother and I danced to Firebird. Little brothers always grow up. Suddenly wild music didn't mean classical with the volume all the way up. It meant hard rock and heavy metal, jarring nerve-shattering noise. And other changes came. My father changed jobs and there was less time to practice. When Mother forbade my brother to play his music after certain hours, the night became silent.

I still loved the silence of the night, but I also had school to consider. I couldn't stay up and enjoy the silence without suffering for it the next day. So I tried to go to sleep when dark descended. I could not. Night after night I lay in bed, tossing and turning. Counting sheep did no good, and reading was worse than useless. It only kept me up later.

My old problems at school had vanished. My mother's words were no comfort when she gave them, but they were true. As I grew older the cruelty of my fellow students not only lessened, but also what remained ceased to have any meaning for me. One problem leaves to be replaced by another. Memory supplies a somewhat faded image of me, head on desk, sleeping through class after class. Teachers spoke with my parents, who laid down the law. I was to be in bed and asleep before midnight. In bed I could provide, but sleep was beyond me. How I wished it were not!

I had endured a world filled with taunting children; I learned to deal with a world blurred by constant lack of sleep. I can't begin to count the times that I wished there were a miracle cure. Some things helped, some did not, but none banished my problem utterly. I began to think none ever would.

Then I sat and looked around at this strange place. I would live here for a whole year. Away from family, away from home, away from both my brother's loud music, and my father's rare French horn practices. It was getting dark. The still night here felt lonely. My fantasy of being the only person alive in the world suddenly became less pleasant. I looked around again, and this time my eye caught on the small stack of CD's that I had brought with me. I selected one. Mozart French horn Concertos said the title. My mother had given it to me to take with, saying that nobody there ever listened to it anymore. Maybe the sound of a French horn would help with the lonely feeling.

I dressed in my nightshirt. I brushed my teeth. Then I took the CD out of the case and put it on the CD player. I pushed play and lay down on the bed. Mozart meant nothing in particular, just a name that I'd heard many times. Somebody famous and long dead. But the music that poured out of the speakers was as familiar to me as my own name. I'd heard my father playing it a thousand times. If I'd had the skill to play at all I could have played along by memory. I let the music wash over me. The sound was bright in my memory in a way that sight could never be.

Oh there were tiny differences. The man whose picture was on the cover was not my father. He was a professional, and my father had chosen not to be. To any other ear the sound would be the same, not to mine. Yet as warm memory washed over me and I closed my eyes I knew that it was close enough.