Sid Roth

SID: Hello, Sid Roth your investigative reporter here with Suzy Harbinson. Suzy was a child prodigy.How old were you when you first started playing a musical instrument?

SUZY: Two.

SID: Two years old? How could you…? What did you play?

SUZY: The piano.

SID: So tell me, how does a two year old even spread out to play the keys?

SUZY: Well my mother was a music teacher; very gifted musician herself.She actually sang vocals, opera back in the late 50’s, early 60’s, on radio nd got me into it; and sat me down at the piano that my father bought, and taught me.And I was very receptive.

SID: Now did you love it? Or did you say I want to go and do what the other kids do? I mean at two years old…

SUZY: I loved it. I loved it.

SID: Really?

SUZY: I have that ability to hear a song and then imitate it without any music.

SID: Would you just pray for me right now, because I can’t even sing!

SUZY: I can’t carry a tune either, but whatever music I hear in my ear,I can translate that to my instrument.And all I’m doing is just adding another layer upon the music that I hear in a way that just touches people.

SID: But you were a violinist with the New Hampshire Philharmonic.

SUZY: Yes.

SID: Sounds impressive to me.

SUZY: I played back in 1981 and ‘82 and I was going to college at the time.And I was working in a hotel for extra money on the weekends.And I was carrying a rack of glasses, champagne glasses and I slipped on the floor.And I cut the tendons and the nerves to my left index finger and my thumb, all the way around.

SID: Well as a violinist that’s not very good.

SUZY: That ended my career or any possible hopes of playing.I also had surgery afterwards.

SID: But wait, did you realize how bad it was when it happened? Or did you think well?

SUZY: No I realized;I couldn’t move my hand at all.It was crippling.And after having the surgery, the first surgery I developed adhesions or scar tissue in my hand so that I couldn’t make a full fist.I didn’t have the dexterity or the mobility to move my fingers.Then about a year later,I had my second surgery microsurgery to heal the nerve damage because I had no feeling.I couldn’t even hold a glass of water.I had to concentrate or else the glass would fall out of my hands.

SID: You must have cried every time you held the glass.

SUZY: I was very angry.And I put my violin away and didn’t touch it again.

SID: Now your mother, you told me, was an accomplished musician, singer, but what did she think about this? What did she feel? It must have crushed her more than you.

SUZY: She was devastated for me, as a parent you know. Of course,she was devastated that I had such a loss and a loss that I loved.And I was just so angry that I just said, well I’ll move on with my life; put my violin away, wound up getting married.I have two daughters, very precious and I didn’t pick up the violin again.

SID: Medically, what did the doctors say?

SUZY: The doctors told me that after the second surgery that the nerves; they tried to repair them; if they were to grow back,I would get sensation and feeling in my hand after two years.After two years, nothing, you pretty much get what you get.

SID: Did you have faith at that point that after two years the feeling would come back?

SUZY: No.I actually went through several months of physical therapy to try to get the circulation and the muscles moving again.And that did improve a little, however, no feeling.I actually used to take pins and stick them in my hand just so that I could see if I could get a sensation in that part of my hand, and nothing;so I know it was basically no hope.After five years: nothing.I didn’t even try at that point.I said you know I’ve got to live with this abnormality in my hand and crippling; just learn to go on but it saddened me.

SID: That was an important part of your life.

SUZY: Absolutely.

SID: Now did you go to the synagogue? Did you pray? You come from a Jewish background.

SUZY: I come from a Jewish background.I was raised Jewish in a conservative home; and Iwent Hebrew school; had a bat mitzvah; believed in God, but only to the degree that God was clear on the other side of the universe, and why should he help me? But through other things that happened in my life as time went on;I actually went through a divorce which is very, very painful to me; and that’s how I found the Lord.

SID: You know pain.

SUZY: I know pain.

SID: You know pain because of what happened to the gift that God gave you; and you know pain because of divorce.You know what I have found out? That it’s almost like the devil has a little bit of insight that someone has something special from God and tries to either snuff out their life, or in Suzy’s case, he literally stole that gift that she had.And it was a gift.Imagine she could just hear something and then play it on her violin.What a gift!But I’ll tell you something, there’s something so supernatural that’s about ready to happen to you.Don’t you dare go away!We’ll be right back.