Dirge for my oldest friend

I finally decided to euthanize my old piano.  I wrote her this dirge, cried (a lot), and played her one last time before I disassembled her. 

You've always been there, a steady presence my whole life. My first memory of you is watching my dad play “Ain't She Sweet”. I watched my brother master you. You stretched out long when my 7-year-old fingers couldn't even reach an octave. You absorbed my angry teenage tears when I didn't want to practice. You stood stoically when I left you behind for college. When I moved into my own house, you came with me. We moved you with us to our second home, then our third and fourth. When I got busy with life, you waited patiently for me to return to you. I taught my children to play you. You barely flinched when my little boy ran his monster truck into you. You didn't make a peep when my young daughter stuffed library books inside you. You collected dust as I neglected you for years. You tolerated my frustrated banging as I learned a new way to play you. When I was happy, you bounced along with me in the major keys.  When life was hard, you mourned with me in the minors.  You gave my husband projects.  When your sustain pedal quit working, he took you apart and fixed it.  When your G# key broke off, he glued it back in place. I've played many pianos, but none of them feel like or sound like you.  In your glory days, your sound was fantastic. When I play other pianos, my fingers feel like they're visiting distant relatives, but when I touch your keys, my fingers are home. When your sound started to go, I brought in an expert to fix you, but he said he couldn't tune you because your soundboard was cracked. When you became hopelessly out of tune, I got a second opinion that agreed with the first. The prognosis was that you were incurable, and one day your soundboard would break and you would die. You are worth nothing to anyone but me. I can't even give you away.  But to me, you are priceless. Goodbye, dear old friend.  Thank you for everything.  I will miss you.

The last song I played on her while she was intact was "The Seal Lullaby". I thought that would be the last thing I ever played on her, but after I told Mike, "I'm six screws away from never playing her again" I discovered that I could still play her!  So I played a song I wrote called "Psalm 23".  Then I discovered that even after I had removed all the white keys, I could still play "Amazing Grace" using just the black keys, so that was actually the last song I'll ever play on her.  

I'm keeping these pieces.  I don't usually get sentimentally attached to material objects, but this one was hard to let go.  I'm hoping to think of something crafty to do with them. It's the F key (my favorite key), the A flat key (the last note I played on her), the music stand, and the decorative piece off the front.  

What a sad burn pile.

Notes from her yearly tuning, I assume, from 1959 to 1963.  My grandma took good care of her.  

I found a quarter deep in her bowels. 
After I cleaned off layers of dust and grime, I saw that it was from 1939.