August 3, 2016

One of my dementia clients is very, very sad.  Alice is 100 years old.  She’s not quite five feet tall, and has always been a very active, energetic person.  Over the years I’ve been visiting with her, she’s told me repeatedly that she weighed just 2 ½ pounds when she was born, surviving against all odds.  She went to work immediately after graduating from high school, and moved from the small town where she was born to the “big city” of Austin as soon as she could.  She worked for 26 years at the same bank, holding a variety of jobs, from teller to head of the safe deposit department.  Her description of trying to control the gigantic vault door, especially given her diminutive stature, is both vivid and delightfully amusing.

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June 8, 2016

This may be disturbing.  When I tell you Ted’s story, you might think, ‘Oh, that’s just so sad and tragic, I don’t want to hear about it.’  To which my response is, ‘Get over it.’  Yes, it’s sad and tragic when people lose their memories…or their minds, or their sight, or their mobility.  But it’s a reality of life.  So let’s talk about how to handle it, and how to help.

Ted is one of my favorite people.  He’s bright, funny, and very, very smart.  He also happens to have dementia.  I’ve mentioned before that my Musical Memories sessions are “musical conversations” and that some people are more interested in the conversation part.  Well, that’s Ted.  Not that he doesn’t occasionally enjoy bringing his full baritone to a song or two, but mostly he likes the give and take of a good verbal exchange.  And he likes to think.

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April 21, 2016

As I was leaving Beverly, one of my favorite dementia patients, I told her I was going to the beach for my birthday, and wouldn’t be coming next week. Seeing her slight frown, I said, “But I’ll bring you a seashell.” So a few days later I found myself at the shore, searching for shells – for Beverly and for other dementia people I visit and sing with every week. Seeing a particular shell, I’d think, Beverly would like those colors, or, Mary might enjoy how this one feels. And I went home with a bag of shells.

The first person I gave a shell to was Barbara, who has become a dear friend and feels almost like a co-conspirator because of her quick wit and delightfully quirky and mischievous personality. (You would probably never suspect she had dementia unless you spent a lot of time with her.) So it didn’t surprise me when, as I gave her the shell and told her I’d picked it up for her at the beach, she looked at me with mock outrage and said, “I can’t believe you went to the beach and didn’t take me with you!” Turns out she is – as I somehow suspected – a beach person like me. As she lovingly stroked and examined the shell, she told me about her childhood in Pennsylvania where months of each year were spent at the beach. And about later, waiting impatiently for her own children to be old enough to take to the beach, because she so wanted to give them that experience.

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March 24, 2016

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently lost two of my favorite Musical Memories clients last week. They were both fun and lovely women who allowed me into their lives during what turned out to be their final days on earth, for which I’ll be forever grateful.

If you haven’t already, please read Call Me Eve! to learn about dear Evelyn. But now let me tell you about June. I’ll warn you, though. This one gets a little spooky!

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March 16, 2016

This has been a tough week. I just lost two very dear friends. (An unexpected side-effect of this job is that people I grow close to die at a frequent, albeit somewhat predictable, rate.) And within a week’s time, Eve and June passed away, so I offer my reflections.

Eve was a fun, funny, warm, and welcoming woman who suffered from dementia apparently brought on by Parkinson’s disease. (I don’t know too much about her back story which I usually learn from obituaries, because her family chose something extremely brief.) So all I know is from our interactions starting about three months ago when she welcomed me into her room as a total stranger who had come to sing.

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May 21, 2015

Let me start by saying that I know that some people are going to read this and feel sad, depressed and/or scared.  To those people I’ll just say, I’m sorry you don’t see this the way I do.

Today I met with one of my favorite dementia patients.  Alice is a lovely, warm woman who is always happy to have me visit and sing with her.  She’s one of my “clients” (though they quickly become so much more than the word implies) who always meets me for the first time.  She’s very open in having me sing, but demurely professes not to be able to sing herself.  However, in less than one phrase or measure of whatever song I choose, Alice is belting it out with joy and enthusiasm, rarely forgetting a single word.  And if asked, she’ll reluctantly admit that she had a lead role in her church choir, and frequently sang with her large family.

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February 2, 2015

When I talk about my Musical Memories service where I sing to/with dementia patients, I refer to the sessions as “musical conversations”.  Lately I’ve been working with a few people who are definitely more interested in the conversation part.

One of the most poignant conversations took place recently at a memory care center while I was making my rounds to visit some of my “regulars”.  As I went from room to room, I kept seeing a woman in the hallway who I first assumed was a family member visiting one of the residents.  But I noticed she kept stopping to check on the staff as they were going about their tasks, asking what they were doing and whether they needed help.  It finally occurred to me that she was, in fact, engaging in the fairly common dementia behavior of “roaming”. Read More→

November 12, 2014

It’s been awhile since I’ve written anything about the amazing and delightful dementia patients I sing with and to. Every time I visit, I come away smiling and humbled. So let me tell you about a few of them.

First of all, there is the lovely Alice, who is always alert and very happy to have me come in and sing. Although she tells me that she can’t sing herself, as soon as I start with one of the classic hymns, she is belting it out at the top of her lungs with gusto and enthusiasm. Not necessarily on key, but that is of absolutely no importance when we’re making our “joyful noise” together! She often asks if I know her parents, whom she believes are living there where she is. She loves talking about her father – a farmer – who works so hard, and about how he and her mother met at the University of Texas. She always asks me to tell them hello when I see them, and I always ask her to do the same.

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June 2, 2014

In the last couple of weeks, I have lost two of the elder gentlemen I sing with.  One had been my “client” for about a year.  I put “client” in quotes because in fact, this man was so much more than that and became so much more to me.

In his day, he was a hotshot engineer at the university and, according to his wife – to whom I also became close – and his obituary, he was a brilliant, articulate man who was extremely well-known and respected by colleagues and loved by his students.

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January 30, 2014

There.  I’ve said it.  I read – and enjoy – the obituaries every day.  I don’t read every single death notice word for word, but I scan them all.  I read about people I know or have heard of, of course, but sometimes the obituary of a stranger grabs my attention. Often it’s the photograph, but sometimes it’s the name, the age, or some other thing that makes me want to hear the life story of someone I’ve never met but who must have meant something to somebody.

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