William sat stone-faced, for god-only-knows-how-long, staring at the oppressive, concrete building in front of him. What needed to be done was daunting.

‘Everyone has at least seven defining life moments,’ he thought. She occupied three of his.

“Basal cell carcinoma of the bicep,” the doctor had said. William was seventeen. For weeks after, every day was a slow-motion nightmare of his imagination showing versions of himself never whole. But in that morass she still managed to make him giggle.

Feeling stronger, William opened the car door, removed his N95 mask and tossed it on the dash as the second memory came.

It was his mother’s funeral. Hundreds of strangers mobbed him and crowded his grief with their own. As her body rolled into the furnace, he fiercely squeezed the hand beside him and felt reassured when hers squeezed back.

William grabbed the case and stepped out of the car. The bulge in his throat was a cantaloupe. He steadied himself, then counted the windows until he arrived at the sixth one on the third floor. On emotional autopilot he popped the case’s latch and retrieved his guitar. He slid out the pick, wrapped the strap over his shoulder, strummed a few chords and adjusted the pitch. The building’s windows began filling. Faces of onlookers with little hope in their eyes watched the young man’s eyes fill with tears.

William began playing.

“There’s a land that I see where the children are free…”

In the third floor window a nurse spotted him. She dashed away and William’s voice began to break but he kept playing.

“For a land where the river runs free; For a land through the green country…” The nurse returned, rolling a bed up to the windowpane.

Weary; face gaunt; eyes mere slits, his 82-year-old grandmother appeared. Calling all her strength, she lifted her hand to the glass. A tear of joy ran down her face.

William sang up to her with as much love as he could muster. This was their song. When he heard it he was an infant and he laid in her arms. She sang it through silly laughter and contorted faces, showering him with overwhelming love. He always savored the moment. It was the very first memory of his life.