For those who don’t know what this convention is, it’s basically a mid-western states regional competition for private schools who use A.C.E. curriculum. It includes every variation of competition from vocal and instrumental music to chess tournaments to spelling to track and field to painting, sewing, woodworking…you name it. All of this competition was crammed into one week and so it was very important to keep a good schedule of what was happening where and when all across NIU’s campus.

Being a pianist, I had always competed in the piano solo category. My first year (7th grade), I got fourth place. The next year I got third, then second place and then, my junior year (the math is right; I skipped 8th grade), I got a command performance (a request from the judges to play my piece again for the morning rally, a huge honor) and first place. It was my moment of glory. Every year I had worked my butt off, moving up the pole of success and had finally achieved The Best. I glowed from this achievement. It was so great. It was indescribable really.

 Because this was an annual competition, I had gotten to know other schools pretty good over the years. There were things everyone figured out along the way of what not to miss: Beka’s vocal solo, Dayspring’s large and small ensembles, Lighthouse’s female quartet, Dayspring’s male vocal soloist, and, yes, my piano solo.

My nerves tightened as my time drew near. I never listened to other piano solos until I had performed mine (simplistic rule to staying positive and focused) so I waited in the hallway until the performance before me was finished. My friends and family were there and crowded into the ballroom when the doors opened for the next performance. My stomach quivered. It was always easier for me to play in front of judges than to play in front of people I knew. I stood in the back of the ballroom. The judges finished tallying up the previous performance and handed in their final scores. They picked up their next stacks of papers—my piece.
 
“Quiet please. Emily Miller, we’re ready.”

 I inhaled, exhaled, and then calmly walked up the aisle, stood by the piano, smiled at the three judges and said, “Good afternoon. My name is Emily Miller and I am from Pathway Christian School. I will be performing a piano solo today titled ‘Come, Christians, Join to Sing’, a traditional Spanish melody arranged by Michael Fischer.”

 I slid onto the piano bench, adjusted it for proper distance from the keys, lowered the music rack and slid it back on the track, glanced at the piano strings lined up and interlaced in front of me, positioned my hands on the keys, took another deep breath and, on the exhale, I began to play.

Everything disappeared. There were no judges. There was no audience. There was nothing but me and the keys and the sound of the music pouring out of the belly of the piano. I must have been breathing, but I didn’t think about it. This was my time. This was my song. This was my final year. This was it.

 I was the first into the hallway and behind me came my school, my friends, and my family. Everyone poured their congratulations on me, telling me it was perfect; it was the best they’d ever heard me play. There were hugs all around, a few tears, and overall, an immense feeling of accomplishment. I had done it. I had done my very best and it was damn good.

I didn’t expect to get a command performance in rally since I had gotten one the year before. As it happened, I got a command performance for my piano duet with my friend Lindsay (we rocked that!) which further confirmed that I wouldn’t have one for my solo. So even when, two mornings later, there was another female pianist performing a solo in rally, I wasn’t worried. I figured they had asked her to play since they had already asked me to perform the piano duet. If there was one thing I had learned from years of piano lessons and competitions, it was how to talk technicality and fundamentals and I knew her piece was technically lacking and not as advanced as mine. I wasn’t worried.

Friday was awards day. It started early and went until all the awards were handed out, which was quite a bit longer than any Oscars show (and we didn’t even give speeches). There were some other awards that I was called up for and won, but nothing mattered to me until we got to the Instrumental Music category: Female Piano Solo. My name was up on the screen along with 5 others. We waited on Stage Left as the names were called one by one starting in 6th place.

I was confident until it came to third place. I knew I had made it into the top three. But that other girl—the one who had played earlier in rally—was still standing beside me. I was confused. She hadn’t been that good. The fourth and fifth place winners had both been better than her. I couldn’t figure out how the scales had tilted so that she would get third place. They called the next name, the third place winner. It wasn’t me. And it wasn’t her. Now my confusion turned back into confidence because I knew that if it was between me and this girl for first place, I was hands-down the winner.
 
“In second place, from Path…”

 That was all I heard. It was all I needed to hear. There was look of utter shock on the faces of everyone from my school. I had lost. I had performed the best piano solo of my career and had lost to someone who played a piece that I had played for fun 4 years ago.

I tried to keep my head up as I walked up the stairs to accept my ribbon. I vaguely remember shaking hands with someone. I eyed the opposite side of the stage and made it my goal to just make it to those stairs. Get the frick off this stage. My feet were lead at the same time that my body felt like a ghost. I was stuck and floating all at once.

As I fumbled down the steps, the guest speaker for the convention came up to take my hand and help me. He had come to my performance. He knew. He was also a pianist and an accomplished one at that. I had purchased one of his music books of original pieces as well as his CD. The look in his eyes mirrored the anguish in mine. He simply said, “I’m so sorry.” and let go of my hand as he sat back down and I ghosted back to my seat.

I remember very little from then on. I crawled over laps to get to my chair and people touched my shoulder or my knee and said kind things, but I didn’t hear them. I swallowed back vomit. I couldn’t see; the tears had finally built into too much of a pool in my eyes and were sliding down my cheeks like silent little waterfalls. Someone—a teacher—handed me a tissue.

I felt void.

After the awards ceremony, I must have packed my bags; one of the guys carried it to the bus for me. We must have taken an all-school photo because I have a print somewhere in an old scrapbook, but I don’t remember smiling for it. We must have driven back to Iowa, but I don’t know how long it took. My mom must have picked me up at school and gotten the story from someone else because I don’t remember telling her what happened. I must have gone home and crawled into bed because the only thing I remember is staring at my bedroom ceiling, shivering under the blankets.

I slept and cried emotionally-unprocessed tears that weekend. And though my friends were one hundred percent supportive, walking into school on Monday morning took every ounce of strength in me. It had been a devastating blow and it had rocked me to the core.

I had worked 8 years to get to this place. I would have been happy to lose to someone more talented than me. I would have considered it an honor, in fact, to fall in their shadow. But I couldn’t accept the fact that I had lost to someone who was 4 years my junior in technicality, who hadn’t memorized her piece and had used sheet music, and whose mother, I later found out, was one of the judges.
 
Life isn’t fair. That week was probably one of the first times I realized that. Yes, I had had my share of heartbreak and other unfortunate situations, but I hadn’t invested my life into them. I was known as a pianist. I started playing Pomp and Circumstance for our high school graduations when I was twelve. I later both sang and wrote songs for graduations. For my sixteenth birthday, my parents had purchased an hour of recording time for me in the music hall at the University of Iowa. Aside from being a volleyball setter (which was a seasonal sport), piano was who I was and where I invested my time and energy.