A precious time lingering over dinner. One elderly resident, confined to a wheelchair and crippled up by diabetes, relived six months of an adventurous past, when she had interrupted her ordinary life to go work on a kibbutz, then travel with new friends to Greece, Turkey, Yugoslavia, hitching rides and sleeping outdoors. Her eyes twinkled and her laughter was contagious.
Nobody should assume that residences for the elderly are boring. They are filled with people who lived through different times, whose outlook may be different but whose experiences reveal the richness and depth of life.
As she finished her memoir, she remarked that she has had to ‘live like a vegetable ‘ since December. She’d like to move on to heaven, but guesses God must have work for her to do, though she can’t imagine what it is.
I think we witnessed it. Bringing light and laughter to people whose options and vision are shrinking. God bless her.
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