As you may or may not know, not only do I work for a huge shipping company, I also work for a small church for old people as their senior citizen baby sitter choir director. I do a lot more than simply direct the choir, though. I manage the budget for the music department, I plan [with the "help" of the reverend] all musical aspects of the worship service, I rehearse both the adult choir and children's choir [had to bribe those little snots with a 20 piece chicken nugget just to get them to get enthusiastic], and I have to deal with all of the he said she said.
Most recently, I was tasked with what used to be a job of the outreach department. However, because we no longer have an outreach department, I had the joy of putting together the annual Christmas Caroling event in which members from the choir and congregation travel via church buses and carpools to various nursing homes and sing for their residents. In years past, I had just always tagged along.
Well, at a recent planning session I asked about the annual event:
blasian: So... what about Christmas caroling this year?
Rev: Oh ok, glad you mentioned it, I'll be looking forward to what you get together. It is pretty late in the year to be planning it, though...
blasian: -_-
I literally had one week of preparation. I gathered the phone numbers of the various nursing homes and made calls, 100% of which I reached answering machines, or worse, front desk workers who didn't seem to know what was going on [or how to speak English]. Two days went by with me calling and receiving some sort of excuse:
blasian: Hello, is your activities director in today?
random: Oh no she went to lunch... call back in about two hours.
blasian: Two hours?
operator: If you'd like to make a call... please hang up and try again
blasian: -_-
Two Hours Later
blasian: Hi, is your activities director back from lunch yet?
random: Oh! She's not coming back in for the rest of the day.
blasian:.... oh... when do you expect her back?
operator: If you'd like to make a call.. please hang up and try again.
blasian: -_-
In the end, I secured 2 of the 3 places that I had planned for. And when the day came, I simply wanted to get it over with. A number of different events have taken place with me at the center of it all. One year, an elderly woman with severe Alzheimer's grabbed me while I was conducting the choir and started babbling something about how the solo was hers and that I had done an extremely cruel thing to her by stripping her of her dignity. It was quite dramatic, and the helpers had to come and give her a tranquilizer shot. Mostly, however, we sing to seemingly lifeless bodies that just sit there and stare at us like we're delaying them from their next round of bingo [and, going by the looks on their faces, they must really like bingo because I always get the feeling that they just want us to leave].
This year was no different.... oh, yes it was... it was VERY COLD and it RAINED.
There we were again, singing to a group of elderly assisted living residents who seemed to not really give a damn. It was rather luke warm on both sides of the venue, and I couldn't wait to move on to the second and last performance.
When we arrived there [the place where the lady grabbed me 2 years prior] we began to sing, and immediately I began to hear someone crying... rather loudly. Here we go again I thought to myself. I looked out into the crowd, and there was, in fact, a lady crying. But in between her sobs I could hear her reciting the next line of the carol that we were singing. She was singing along, but it was paining her emotionally to do so. I wondered why.
There was another lady that seemed like she was enjoying the performance. She moved her arms as if she were conducting us, and gave us our next lines as well.
Afterwards the activities director [the one who gets a two hour lunch and doesn't have to come back for the second half of her work day] explained to me that all of the patients that we were singing for today [and apparently every time for the past 3 years at that particular venue] are a part of the Alzheimer's ward. That is, that their minds have deteriorated to the point that they cannot function normally in society and are wholly dependent on the care givers.
Something that we did touched quite a few people that day, and when I realized it, everything seemed to change. I was so sad, and reminded of the movie the Notebook; particularly *spoiler alert* the end when the old lady suddenly remembered her husband, and then forgot again.
I guess the point to this long rant that nobody will ever read is to respect old people. We'll all be old one day. To be forgotten is a step worse than death.
