05/24/2026
More personal trivia for June’s ten year celebration. ❤️
I have three siblings, and I am the oldest.
My sister, Rachel, is five years younger than me and one of my very best friends. My brother, Jonathan, is ten years younger than me and also one of my best friends. Our youngest brother, Jody, is eighteen whole years younger than me. Legally, he became my son during the summer between his Kindergarten and first grade year. (The rest of that story is for another day.)
Our parents both played piano. Daddy played by ear. Mama read music.
When I was five years old, I started playing piano by ear… while Mama was at the hospital giving birth to Rachel. When I was ten years old and Rachel was five, Mama was at the hospital giving birth to Jonathan… and Rachel started playing piano by ear. Then, when Jonathan turned five years old, he started playing piano by ear too.
I should probably insert this part here:
Everything I played, Rachel played better.
In fact, she chose to only play Pentatonic keys (the black notes). Then Jonathan came along and somehow played better than both of us.
Many summer days and autumn and winter evenings were spent gathered around the piano together. We sang harmony before we even knew what harmony really was. Daddy quickly took notice and would have us sing in church before he preached.
Most of the time, we had absolutely no warning.
He would simply announce from the pulpit,
“The children are going to sing.”
We would all look at each other and whisper,
“Did you know about this?”
“I didn’t know about this!”
But Daddy had announced it, so by the time we reached the piano, we somehow managed to pull something together.
Jody, our youngest sibling — and my son — discovered music a little differently. He used sticks, wooden spoons, or anything resembling drumsticks. While we gathered around the piano, that little toddler would beat out perfect rhythm patterns on Mama’s living room end tables.
Of course, he also used a lampshade as a cymbal… until he discovered Mama’s stack of old vinyl records and found a way to turn those into cymbals too.
Fast forward to the millennial years…
For a short time, we became a family band called “The Hollis Party of Four.”
It was kind of like the Von Trapp family… all grown up.
We sang and traveled to different churches giving concerts together.
Each of us developed our own favorite genres of music. All four of us play piano and guitar. Rachel and I play bass. I played flute in high school band. Rachel played trumpet. Jonathan learned how to make a Hammond organ cry.
And Jody? Well… Jody chose clarinet in school band.
Then he invited his friends over and our loft became band headquarters. At one point, there were three full drum sets, a bass guitar, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, amplifiers, and speakers filling that loft.
(Thank God for kind neighbors.)
Every year as Jody got older, whichever instrument he wanted to learn became his birthday gift. Before moving out on his own, he had learned the basics of clarinet, oboe, saxophone, and violin, pretty much mastered acoustic guitar, and could still make a set of drums make you want to dance.
One day, Jody said something I have never forgotten:
“Life without music is no life at all.”
Honestly, I think all four of us still believe that. We still love to sing when we are together. Check the first comment if you so choose. Singing brings me Joy.
