For the last two days, UD has been here, helping her aunt settle in. While not quite as opulent as a football facility at the University of Oregon, it’s certainly beautiful and peaceful and full of kind people.
The landscaping is terrific.
All the butterflies are out.
(UD‘s sister took this picture.)
Yesterday afternoon, the director of life enhancement stopped UD while UD was wheeling her aunt around the campus and escorted UD and her aunt to a little concert in a nearby building. A quartet of scruffy amusing fiftyish guys with guitars and drums led the way-oldies in a singalong. UD‘s aunt tapped her toes a bit, and UD belted out Those Were the Days My Friend plus the Beatles and Elvis.
Even the audience members who happened to be awake had very weak voices, so it fell to ol’ UD plus the staff, which circulated among the residents grabbing their hands and swinging them up and down to the beat, to carry off the singalong. It fell to UD and the staff to do the life, never mind the life enhancement.
As in those Roethke lines —
If only I could nudge you from this sleep,
My maimed darling…
— UD felt herself a ridiculous impertinent envoy from life, self-deputized to make everyone care whether they lived or died.
August 3rd, 2013 at 6:56PM
Somehow, this reminds me of Japanese poetry from the 800s. Just beautiful.
August 25th, 2013 at 3:55PM
[…] aunt, who loved and wrote poetry, lives, post-stroke, in Brooke Grove. UD has inherited her poetry collection – three boxes of hardbacks which UD‘s cousin […]