Long Term Care Center

There’s a picture of me at Christmas when I was 16 years old where I’m sitting at the dinner table playing the first guitar I ever owned. It was a dark brown Johnson acoustic. I didn’t know more than a few chords and I knew how to play one song (I believe it was a song by Brand New) and that’s the song I was singing in the picture. I didn’t know anything about it and never would have dreamed that I’d be releasing albums and writing songs about people and places. I just powered through my awkward inability to strum with any sort of rhythm.

7 1/2 years later, I found myself standing in front of a crowd of 17 octogenarians, dining chairs made erroneous by their wheelchairs, half of them sitting like idle marionettes, heads drooped, arms limp, half asleep, raising their heads and arms to clap at songs that no one would have guessed they even noticed.

A woman with a giant ball of white hair resembling something atop the head of a lego person looked at me and called out to me in a voice that somehow was both a whisper and a yell asked how long I’d been playing. It took me a second to process the fact that I’ve been playing almost 8 years.

“Almost 8 years,” I said loudly.

“What?”

“Almost 8 years,” I said, clearer.

She half closed her eyes and shook her head. Her hand moved in a dismissive motion.

“I can’t hear you,” she said, her tone suggesting that I not bother.

Another man, to my left, asks where I’m from and whispers something quietly about lakes and rivers by my hometown. I have to move so close that we’re inches from each other.

I begin pacing from my spot in the corner of the room to my coffee on the table, unsure of how to interact with these people full of so much experience and knowledge yet so incapable of sharing it, their minds fading slowly. I hold on tightly to my guitar, waiting for the nurses to wheel the rest of my audience into the room, one at a time.

A man named Randall shares a story with me as we wait about a friend of his from some distant time, long before now, who owned a guitar. This friend had moved from Arkansas to St. Louis and, “boy, could he play,” he says, recounting a certain song that his friend used to sing, an indeterminable folk song from the deep south. “Thank you for sharing that!” I say.

I begin playing and close my eyes as I always do. Alarms go off from time to time as some residents attempt to get out of their wheelchairs, setting off their “wander guards”, alarms designed to prevent them from leaving their chairs, a cord attaching them to their chair. The whole thing brought a deep sadness to me, the fact that these people have lived long lives and made great sacrifices and share experiences that I will never endure in my time. Yet, they’ve been resigned to sitting in their chairs, not allowed to walk freely for fear they may harm themselves.

So there I stand, singing my sad songs, watching as these people who lived through the eras and experiences that inspire me, watching them as the nurses tell them they need to sit back down in their chairs, nurses who could easily be these peoples’ grandchildren.

After I finished my last song I sat and ate chocolate ice cream across from Randall. He told me 3 times about when he rescued a little girl in the waters along the dividing line between North and South Korea during his time in the Navy. Each time, the story was a little different, but the telling of it was almost exactly the same. Somehow, that story was more interesting each time. I wanted to know more. I looked into his eyes and saw them full of experience and knowledge and a life lived fully. I wanted to grab his wheelchair and run out of there and say, “RANDALL! WE’RE BREAKING OUT!” but I couldn’t. I said my goodbyes, got my gas money from the event coordinator and walked out feeling strange.

I’d done something great. I’d brought these people something that they rarely get. Something different. Or did I just give them a taste of something they’d once had: Freedom. Will they remember me when I return? When they lay their heads down on their pillows, will their crooked bodies resonate with the words I sang to them or have their lives been too full to contain anything else? Should I be happy that they’ve lived full lives and that I was able to share with them a gift that has been given so freely to me or should I be sad to know that they’re living their final years in a confined space, all of their choices and decisions made for them?

What I do know is that I should never forget that picture. I should never forget the day that I picked up that first guitar and stumbled through the same two simple chords of the only song I knew. I should never forget the gift that has been given so freely to me. I should never forget that I have a responsibility to share it with all people and we all have a responsibility to be passionate and share that passion with the world.