"What are you thinking?" Elena asked gently.
Maya stared at the piano keys. "I don't know what to play. All week I've been learning other people's choices. Now I have to decide for myself, and I feel completely lost."
Elena sat down beside Maya on the piano bench. "Let me ask you something: when you were living on the streets, did you ever imagine playing piano again?"
Maya shook her head. "I thought it was over. I thought I would never get to make music again."
"But you never stopped loving music, did you?"
"No," Maya said quietly. "Even when I didn't have a piano to play, I would hear music in my head. I would remember pieces my father taught me. Music was the only thing that kept me going."
Elena nodded. "So, what piece of music means the most to you? What piece connects you to your deepest feelings about music and life?"
Maya was quiet for a long time. She thought about all the music she had learned over the years. She thought about the pieces that had brought her joy and comfort. She thought about the music that reminded her of her father.
Suddenly, Maya knew what she wanted to play. "I want to play something I wrote myself," she said.
Elena looked surprised. "You compose music?"
Maya nodded. "I wrote a piece last year when I was still living in the shelter with my mother. It was just before she disappeared. I was feeling so sad and scared, and I needed to express those feelings somehow. So, I wrote a piece for piano. I called it Letter to My Father."
Elena's eyes filled with tears. "Maya, that sounds perfect! But do you remember it well enough to perform it?"