“I guess life is like that
– beautiful, and sad at the same time.”
Words of wisdom spoken over
the phone across the miles from my sweetheart, David, in response to the story I
told him through tears as I sat in the nursing home parking lot.
I had popped into the
home, which is only for “memory care” patients, just to quickly deliver some
bird food to Evelyn, my dad’s 2nd wife. He married her after my mom died, and just a
few hours before Dad died, Evelyn was moved into the home. She had a rough go of it in the beginning –
confused where she was, why she was there, where my dad was, when she would go
home, who would get the mail, etc. But
it has been exactly a year now and she has settled in much better than I ever
imagined.
When I walked in tonight
at 6:00 PM, right after dinner was finished at the home, I saw about 15 women
sitting around in the main room. The TV
was on but there was no sound. As soon
as one of them saw me, she asked how to turn the news on. When Evelyn turned her head and realized it
was me, she chimed in on needing the tv turned the news. (This was sweet actually, since I lived with
Dad and Ev the last couple months of Dad’s life, and Evelyn was constantly
messing up their television with the remote, which Dad and I always had to try
and fix…)
Anyway, I am a helper by
nature in situations like that, so I set about trying to find the remote. IF THE LADIES WANTED NEWS, THE LADIES WOULD
GET NEWS!! Only, the staff at a memory
care facility is too smart to leave a remote out in the open, so I couldn’t find
it. The staff was all busy finishing up
the slow eaters’ dinners, so I filled up the bird feeder as I had come to
do. But the news still wasn’t on, and
the troops were getting upset!! So, I stood
up in front of everyone and delivered a news report: HELLO LADIES!
HERE IS TODAY’S NEWS. IT IS VERY,
VERY COLD OUTSIDE!! BUT TOMORROW WILL BE
SUNNY AND 55 DEGREES. SO THAT IS GOOD
NEWS! AND IT IS ALMOST
THANKSGIVING!
My newscast went over very
well! They smiled and talked a bit about
the weather. But still, I am a “man of
my word”, and I had told them I would get someone to turn on the news…. So, I went and found a staff member who
explained to me that they NEVER watch the news there, or any shows with murder
or scary movies and things like that. “But
they are asking for the NEWS…” said naïve me.
“Yes, they ask every night. Mostly
Evelyn and J*. But we don’t ever watch
the news. It isn’t good for them to see
all of that. Please tell them a movie will
start in a few minutes and there will be popcorn.”
I marched back to the
living room and announced that a movie and popcorn were coming up. This made them happy. I sat down and started some chit chat. For some reason I said, “Hey, does anyone
want to sing Christmas carols? It is
almost Christmas!”. Some eyes lit
up. There were some “yes!”
responses. “Alrighty then! Which song shall we start with???” I asked.
Crickets. Blank stares.
OOOOOKKKK. So, they were down to sing, but they weren’t
going to put in any requests…
“How about Silent Night??”
I tried. “Oh yes!!” they replied.
And then me and a group of
memory care patients started to sing. We
were quiet at first, but got louder as we went on. We looked one another in the eyes. We smiled genuine smiles. And we sang – oh we sang.
And when the song was
done, I smiled so big. I clapped, and
they clapped along. “We sounded
BEAUTIFUL!!” I exclaimed, and they agreed.
“What shall we try next?” I asked, not learning my lesson the first time
that no one was going to pitch in ideas except me. After a bit of silence, I suggested “Joy To
The World”.
That one sounded just as
beautiful as the first. So did “Jingle Bells”. So did “Away in a Manger”. And ladies who had sat the first song out
started to join in. Our chorus got
louder. Our smiles got bigger. Ladies who don’t know what day of the week it
is, what they used to do for a living, and where their room is in the nursing
home magically knew the words to songs.
Even the lady doing the crossword puzzle with a cranky expression on her
face had to look up, grin, and join in the singing.
It. Was. Lovely.
Staff members walked through
to deliver medicine and listened in. They
seemed surprised that, without any official leadership, the girls were
filling the home with the Christmas spirit.
The little lady seated next to me rubbed my back a few times and told me
what a nice voice I have. And a little old
lady who had a visitor, it looked like her daughter, joined in from the
sidelines. She looked sad when the
visitor left, but I gestured to her to come join us in the room and sit on the
couch and she did. And before long, she
was singing and smiling, too.
And do you know what? Every time we would finish a song, oftentimes
“Silent Night”, someone would pipe up, “How about “Silent Night”??? Have we done that one yet??”.
And we would begin again.
Silent night. Holy night.
Over and over and over. For 40 minutes.
The retired music teacher,
now nursing home resident, came and sat down next to Evelyn and even added a
bit of harmony. Later I heard the music teacher lean over and ask Evelyn quietly
how she would get home, because she didn’t think her car was there. Evelyn said, “Why don’t you stay HERE??” in
such a sweet, welcoming, happy voice. It
made my heart smile to know that Evelyn now thinks of that place as HOME.
And THAT is how I ended up
in my car in the parking lot crying. Because
life is beautiful. And sad. And often both at the same time.
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