Losing a loved one is devastating, but the pain cuts even deeper when you realize the moments with them are gone forever. A Redditor, known as OpenMindy (u/traditional-rock-921), recently unearthed a priceless time capsule from 1976: a short, silent film of their late mother playing the cello. Having grown up listening to their mom play before she passed away at a young age, the discovery was bittersweet—nostalgic but tinged with fresh grief. Without the ability to play the cello, the Redditor turned to the internet, seeking help to identify the piece their mom was performing. The response they received was overwhelmingly supportive.
Representative Image Source: Getty Images | Inti St. Clair
On September 29, the Redditor posted this clip in the Reddit group r/classicalmusic with the caption, “I found a silent film of my mother, who died young, playing the cello. Can anyone help me identify what she is playing? I remember her playing for me as a small child and would love to hear what it sounded like again.” The film features a beautiful woman with dark hair, gracefully playing her cello in silence.
The Redditor desperately sought to decipher the audio behind the footage and re-sync it to the video to experience listening to their mom’s cello once again. In the comments section, people gathered together to share inspiring messages and guesses about the cello song in question. “What a beautiful mystery. I hope a cellist finds it and can resync the sound for you,” commented u/oncemorewithgusto.
Representative Image Source: Getty Images | Georgi Fadejev
Some Redditors analyzed the footage closely, offering their best guesses. u/mrfunkyland said, “Man, it’s hard to tell. The rhythm and the fingering make me think it could be from the introduction of the Elgar cello concerto.” u/james_dude suggested, “First 4 notes look like F# E D# A” A trained classical musician suggested that “I do believe she's playing something in C major here, which I've noted a couple of others across subs have guessed as well,” and also shared a set of music notes. u/jolasveinarnir chimed into this comment and wrote, “As a cellist, I agree with this transcription!” However, the mystery wasn’t solved quite yet.
Many suggested that the user post the clip in the Reddit group r/cello. So, they posted it in r/cello group where over 1,300 people upvoted his post. Here too, in the comments section, people tried their best to help but were confused by what the song could be. u/annathesia44 and u/thethunderXI thought that it was “Brahms cello sonata,” which is in E Minor. In a comment, the user revealed a hint that their mom usually played well-known classical pieces like Bach's Suites and Elgar.
After about three days, on October 3, the Redditor posted an update on r/classicalmusic. “Following some excellent suggestions in the comments to reach out to professional cellists who could reproduce the playing on the film, I got in touch with several and have some great results back,” they wrote in the caption. They added that a cellist named Joanna (@celloendpinfem) had worked hard to recreate the footage's audio and also wrote a beautiful accompaniment. Beneath the caption, the Redditor reposted the clip with Joanna’s improvised rendition added in the background audio.
UPDATE: I found a silent film of my mother, who died young, playing the cello. Please help me identify what she is playing... I have new audio!!
byu/Traditional-Rock-921 inclassicalmusic
The user appealed to people to keep showing their support and help them re-construct the song their beloved mom might have been playing while this footage was being recorded. In the comments, people showered praises for social media and the internet's power. “This is one of the best examples of the internet creating fellowship and collaboration,” commented u/780266.
Image Source: Reddit | u/gustapheofficial
Ladder leads out of darkness.Photo credit 
Woman's reflection in shadow.Photo credit 
Young woman frazzled.Photo credit 
Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.