We're going to lose my great-aunt's Steinway grand.

She earned a doctorate in piano performance from the University of Utah. Her parents bought that piano in the 30's. She played it and cherished it every single day for over seventy years. As she aged and lost dexterity, she didn't play as often, but she still played and still loved her piano.

Last year she told my mother that my grandfather, her brother, had threatened to take it away from her. The day she died, he called someone in town to ask how to get it appraised. He and his new wife have gone through so much money and have bought so much crap that he's in an obscene amount of debt and still looking for more ways to get more money to spend. He's going to sell her piano. If one of us wanted to keep it, we would have to buy it from him. No one has space for a grand piano, either. I knew it was impossible, but I wanted that piano so much.

We're going to lose it. It's more than my own selfish desire to have it - it's a family heirloom. It was the one thing Ruth cherished above everything else she ever owned. And we're going lose it.