May 19, 2009

Singing for the Seniors

One by one they came in to find their seats for our concert.

Some of them were leaning on walkers, shuffling carefully along in those little mobile cages, with the two wheels in front and hand brakes. Some of the walkers even had baskets, although I didn’t see any with little bells or squeezy horns. In a sense, they were back to relying on a sort of bicycle, like they probably did so many years ago. Only these bikes are (hopefully) a whole lot slower.

A few of them were in powered wheel chairs, gliding silently and triumphantly through the door and down the aisle, driving with their little joysticks and a look of satisfaction. Others were in the old-style wheel chairs, this one helped by a uniformed assistant and that one by a younger relative there for a weekend visit.

But many of them were walking with canes or with no assistance at all. It looked like they moved with some pain, though, and they chose each step with care. Some of them bore bruises that were probably the result of making some walking decision that did not entirely pan out.

They were all members of an upscale retirement community, paying to spend an hour on a beautiful springtime Sunday afternoon listening to Kitty Donohoe and I sing some songs and tell some stories about our work with Lost Voices. We were performing in their chapel – a bright, beautiful room with a vaulted ceiling and amazing acoustics. The altar had been moved aside, leaving us a perfect stage.

The first lady arrived while I was just getting the microphones out of the bags, nearly an hour before the show was scheduled to start. She carefully chose a spot a few seats in from the aisle in the third row and sat patiently, smiling softly and adjusting her hearing aid as I assembled the sound system, tuned the guitars and set all the sound levels. Most of the other seats were full 15 minutes early.

We opened the concert with a piece by Catie Curtis called Passing Through. My favorite part of the song is in the last verse:

If I can’t change the world,

I’ll change the world within my reach.

What better place to start

Than here and now with me and you?

We are only passing through.

As I sang that passage, I looked out at all the faces. Aside from the man in the center of the second row who had dozed off while we were being introduced, every face was rapt, deeply involved. One woman was nodding in time, with tears in her eyes.

Kitty and I spent the rest of our time on stage telling these people all about the group of incarcerated kids who have shared with us brilliant glimpses into their souls. We sang some songs written by those kids, songs about mean streets, and bad decisions, and pain. Songs about relationships they lost, or wished they had. Even songs about the hopes and aspirations and courage of people they would never meet.

All the while our audience tapped their feet and leaned into every word.

As I watched these wonderful people, so gracefully nearing the end of their own long journeys through this world, I found myself deeply moved by the way they were willing to connect emotionally with troubled young men and women whose own roads had gone so wrong so early. Maybe they saw shadows of their own children, or grandchildren, or even their younger selves in the stories of the Lost Voices kids. Maybe they felt fortunate that those shadows had never fallen across their paths.

And maybe they were just willing to step out of their own challenges for a while, to help us plant a few seeds for some trees under which none of us may ever sit.

Copyright ©2009 Michael Ball. Distributed exclusively by North Star Writers Group.

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