entertainment

The nursing home let me know that they were celebrating the November birthdays two days before the event.  Fortunately, I was on top of it and had asked by brother the previous week when the celebration was.

He is kind of funny about the whole thing.  He professes not to care, and doesn't want his birthday announced.  In fact when they do it by mistake, he gets mad.  But he made it pretty clear that he wanted me to attend the event.

The event is held in a room with a lot of tables in it.  It takes a very long time for the attendees to get wheeled into the room.  Very few are in walkers.  They always have entertainment at these affairs.

This yea'r entertainment was a singer whose father had recently moved into the nursing home.  She sang a lot of tunes from the "thirties, forties,fifies, sixties, and maybe even the seventies".  Actually, she sang a bunch of old Boadway melodies and Frank Sinatra songs.  Not my type of music.  But she was energetic and spirited.  It was the fist time I saw an entertainer go into the audience and actually try to make contact with the patients.  Mind you, this is not easy to do because most of them are stroke victims and in various stages of consciousness.  But there are a few who are more alert, including my brother.  The tunes were cathchy and I tried to respond enthusiastically.  We both clapped.  Our feet tapped to the music.  The singer got a blind patient to getup and dance with her.  And another man with a November birthday got up and danced with her two.  He could barely stand but she slowed dance with him,  I was very touched.  My brother seemed to actually get into it.

It went on for an hour.  I was ready to leave thirty minutes before the end but obviously I couldn't.
As we left, my brother remarked that the show was actually good and that he enjoyed.it.

I can't say that I would volunteer to go to an event like this, but it did make me feel that I did this for my brother.  It's good to not think of yourself first always.