Inheritance is a word that may sound very good to some, but very bad to others. On the one hand it can be positive because you inherited the fortune of a relative or a friend, but there are also negative aspects, the inheritance of problems from one family to another. In Tammy's case she inherited something that can be considered to be somewhere in the middle, it is neither bad nor good, it all depends on how she sees it. She always compares it to a soup that your mother gives you on a special date, you may like it or not, but you had to eat it because "it's tradition." But we are not here to talk about soups, or well yes but in another way, here the soup comes in the shape of a saxhorn, a musical instrument that is and will be Tammy's inheritance.
Her father is not just anyone, he is an outstanding Euphonist who has a long history of playing the saxhorn. In the house this instrument has a special place because it is an inherited talent. First, Ramón, Tammy's father, inherited his saxhorn from his father, and then her father from his other father. So here it is a bit of a tongue twister, but it is understood that from generation to generation, Tammy's entire family has played the saxhorn. And this is where her inheritance comes in, Tammy was indirectly required to continue the family tradition of playing this instrument. She loved music, yes, but she had a lot of pressure on her to play this
Many times in her youth she would say to her father, can I play the guitar, or can I play the trumpet instead? Her father looked at her with disappointment and even a little fear because he feared that she would not follow the family roots, and she was his only daughter, so it was up to her to continue his legacy. Tammy is not a silly girl, she always imagined what her father said to her with those looks every time he asked her to play a new instrument. So this naturally limited her, and the pressure continued to mount. But she never talked back to her father or told him that she didn't want to play that instrument. She always ended up doing what her family wanted for her.
Their house looked like a museum, but it really wasn't. It was a house with a classic style and everywhere you could see the influence of some ancestor, this family is practically made up of inherited talents, don't forget that. And the saxhorns, those did occupy a special place in the whole house. They were hanging in the dining room, in the kitchen, even in the bathroom there was a shower shaped like a saxhorn, it was very funny to look at. Each one of those saxhorns belonged to someone in the family, as is the case of grandfather Francisco who had been the most famous Euphonist in the world.
Only Tammy, her mother who was called Clau, and Tammy's father lived in the house. It was a very big house for just the 3 of them, so very often she felt alone or maybe empty despite being so full, and yes it was full. That's why their parents were almost constantly playing to cheer up the 3 of them. An acquired taste is something that you don't like at first, like eating Japanese food or squid, but if you gradually expose yourself to that food you will end up liking it. That's called an acquired taste. In Tammy's case, she didn't like playing the saxhorn, but since she had been listening to it and playing it since she was little, she ended up liking it too.
But liking the saxhorn doesn't necessarily mean you're going to play like your parents. In the case of Tammy's parents, they had a more classical and very stylized style. But Tammy is a girl who, as they say, is of the latest generation. So from time to time she liked to innovate and fuse classical music with rock, jazz with blues. Her parents didn't really like this idea so they always told her that her method was better and that it sounded much more classical. This occasionally brought arguments between them, but it was nothing out of the ordinary. They got along very well and were very close, they just expressed their point of view in their own way, then things calmed down.
Obviously, despite everything, the pressure she was under was real, but so she stopped innovating with the saxhorn to concentrate on pleasing her parents. This of course made her feel dissatisfied, her parents, as expected, were very happy because they had won the battle. Many years passed like this, with small joys for each one, but Tammy always felt that she was not herself.
Despite everything, she became a famous Euphonist, and filled her parents with pride every time she played at shows and so on. She got married and had children and her husband was also a Euphonist, it seems that there will be Euphonist s in this family for a long time. But this would not last forever. The more Tammy advanced in her career, the more dissatisfied she felt, it is not easy to live in your father's shoes forever. This whole snowball was broken by a very simple thing. So simple that some time later they remember the experience with a lot of laughter. It turns out that Tammy went to her parents' house to help them with the cleaning, because they alone could not clean such a big house.
The house had several empty rooms that hadn't been cleaned for years, because they weren't used often. One of those rooms was her grandfather's, her father's. There were a lot of paint marks in that room, and of course, a lot of pipes on the wall too. That wasn't the important thing, the important thing was that while she was cleaning she saw that one of the nightstands had a drawer half open. She opened it to clean it and what she found inside was what changed everything. It was her grandfather's diary. Obviously Tammy didn't read it because it wasn't his diary, she just gave it to her father to see, because maybe he didn't know it was there. Her father didn't know it was there either so she took it in her hands with great emotion.
Her father had died years ago so she saw this as a way to remember him. He thanked Tammy very much for giving it to her. Tammy continued cleaning the house, and didn't think about it any more for the rest of the day. But her father did think about it, maybe a lot. She went to her bedroom and there she began to read the diary. With each page she turned, tears ran down her face, because it had been ages, well not that long, since she had seen him. And this brought back many memories. On the last page was the last entry her father made in the diary.
There she read something that was the trigger for the change. Her father said that she should enjoy music, especially the saxhorn, but that she should never feel chained to it, that she should be herself. He also said that he liked his son to follow in his footsteps but that he would prefer that he take his own path and not follow his just out of tradition. In fact, her father regretted not having done something different in his entire life. And he closed by saying, “Son, if one day you read this, be yourself.” Reading this made Tammy’s father very sad, because he realized the mistake he had made in his entire life, he had not been the same. But even worse, he was chaining his daughter to something she was not, he was not letting her be free.
Coming out of his bedroom, he immediately called Tammy and his wife. He apologized profusely first to Tammy and then to his wife, because he had forced them in one way or another to be like him. They consoled him and told him that they didn't care, that if it made him happy, it would make them happy too. Still, he insisted that she should be herself from now on. She told him it was okay. Who would have thought that a cleansing would lead to this? Now she had the chance to be free, which she had always wanted. She never stopped playing the saxhorn, but she adapted it to her style.
It is important that we never condition others to follow in our footsteps, each person, be it our mother, our father, or our son, must be able to lead their own life, and although it is good that we advise others, we should not impose our way of being. Tammy's father reacted in time, but what would have happened if not? Surely in the long term a disaster. But everything ended well, even better than everyone expected. Tammy followed in her father's footsteps as a famous Euphonist, but with a unique and free style, it was truly her. And remember to clean your rooms, sometimes you find the solution to problems that way.
Credits: The images used are free to use and royalty free. They were taken from pixabay.
