As I walked inside the retirement facility with my daughter, I silently prayed we would not be directed to the Memory Care community. I was there with my daughter’s elementary school choir who had been invited to share their spring program. Memory Care homes, though beautifully appointed, are where one’s memories are kept, entrusted to people who never knew them. I remember what it was like to walk into such a place to see the woman who raised me. After opening the first door in my mom’s residence, there was a second heavy locked door which required a code to open it. I knew it could keep unauthorized people from coming in, but was primarily designed to keep the residents from getting out. Residents who, if they walked beyond the exit, would likely have no idea where to go. My mom, with her memories of the familiar long since lost, no longer knew where home was, let alone how to get there. And so this was her home now. A place which held no personal connection to the decades of life she had lived on the other side of the door.
While I was lost in thought, I heard the director tell us we indeed were headed to Memory Care. As I felt the beat of my heart race within me, I straightened up and followed obediently with my daughter and the other eager children. We walked into the gathering hall where seats had been arranged in a theater fashion with space at the front for the students to stand. The room was packed with dozens of white-haired residents who had been led to their seats or wheeled in to watch the performance. Staff attentively settled those who seemed agitated and made room for me to stand off to the side with the other parents. I took my place and tried to steady my quickened breathing when I received the most surprising and delightful gift I never knew I wanted.
With a wide grin and outstretched hands, she came toward me as though we were dear friends. Her black sweater was on inside out and runaway white hairs fanned across her shoulders and sleeves. Her hair, though slicked back in a wide headband, was neither washed nor styled. Yet she exuded an undeniable beauty. She clasped my hands in hers, put her face close to mine, and said excitedly, “The children, they’re all so precious. Every single one!” I agreed, indeed they were. Her vitality was magnetic, and I kept sneaking glimpses of her throughout the program. I saw how she beamed with jubilation and kept her hands clasped before her as though she could not contain her delight. She was mostly alone in her celebrating. Some residents smiled occasionally while others didn’t seem to realize they were part of an audience. A few appeared to be lost in thought or annoyed to have been required to sit through the program.
After it was over I went up to the woman who had greeted me. She grabbed my hand again and said, “Every one of them –a gift.” I agreed and told her she was such a light, so filled with joy. She looked directly at me and said, “Well, of course.” This woman may have no idea who she once was or what her life was once about, but today she knows this: she is a person of joy. To her it appeared to be the obvious and only choice.
And just like that, I saw the first bloom in spring: a gift that felt as if it came straight from my mom’s hand. My mother loved music and had a role in numerous choirs and singing groups over the course of her life. Though she forgot nearly everything about herself, music was her pathway home. She used to sit right next to the pianist who came each Wednesday to the residence where she lived. She sang the lyrics to Gershwin songs and church hymns with pinpoint accuracy. Music unfurled some of the tangled webs in her mind and through it we got her back for a few moments. So in the company of this joy-filled soul, the gift not only of music, but of life set ablaze the kindling within me of gratitude for this moment, this season, this life in which the pathway to joy is always open, if only I will choose it.
Read more from Melinda at www.melindamattson.com