“She is in every note I play”: How a widower used his wife’s ashes and wedding ring to craft the most beautifully poignant custom guitar
Teruya Guitars founder Micah Teruya has just completed his most personal build to date. Following a long battle with leukaemia, Teruya’s wife Karrah sadly passed away last August – but the luthier is ensuring that her spirit lives on through this beautiful custom-made electric guitar.
Rather than merely stowing Karrah’s ashes in an urn, Teruya has transformed his wife into something beautiful. The pastel pink Matriarch guitar serves as poignant one-of-a-kind axe in honour of Teruya’s late wife – and it’s even got Karrah’s ashes inlaid on the headstock, and her wedding ring embedded in the fretboard.
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While Teruya often documents the entire process of his guitar builds, this project was kept under wraps until the final reveal. However, the craftsman did film the two most meaningful moments, when he is delicately inlaying Karrah’s ashes and her ring. He has shared the clips alongside some of his most cherished videos and memories of his wife. “The process was incredibly painful for me but I wanted to share this with you because of how much it means to me,” he writes on Instagram.
“Having to deal with the technical aspects of building a guitar colliding with the emotional weight of who I lost was unbearable,” he continues. “Often I could only work for 10-30 minutes on this before being physically and emotionally drained.”
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Despite the pain, finishing the Matriarch guitar was a crucial part of processing his grief. “This guitar needed to be finished before I could continue on any other projects – it took me over 6 months to finish,” he admits. “Going through my camera roll for these clips of Karrah brought me to tears several times. She was so magnificent and beautiful. I wish all of you could have gotten to know her, she would have changed your world for the better.”
In another post, Teruya explains why he opted for the Matriarch name. “Karrah was the Matriarch of our family and friends, she dedicated everything in her life to bring all of us closer together…” he writes. “Nobody tells you that you can continue to love someone more even after they leave this life. I built this guitar to honour her life and her legacy in a way that is personal and sacred to me.”
In terms of the wedding ring on the fretboard, he also explains that its positioning holds a special, personal meaning. “Traditionally it would be placed in the 12th fret to mark the octave, however, we were married for 10 years, 11 months and 14 days, therefore I decided to place the ring between the 10th and 11th fret to symbolise how long we had been married,” he explains.
“This was the most painful experience I ever had building an instrument… but now she is in every note I play,” he concludes.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
