Plant Me Where There is Electricity in the Air

Saturday found us up in Kansas City visiting folks on Grant's side of the family and mine. My grandmother moved from Wichita, Kansas to Kansas City, Kansas this past Saturday and we got to help her get settled into her new residence. She has moved into a nursing home that is within walking distance of my parents' home. We visited in the airy lobby of the home for quite a while Saturday evening. Shortly after we arrived, a woman came in and began playing the piano and singing gospels songs. Her robust singing put me in mind of a Della Reece. Soon the lobby began to fill up as residents wheeled themselves in to listen. Something just felt so right about being in the midst of the singing and laughing in a room full of so many different colors and races...being in the middle of loud laughing and loud voices and feeling a part of it all. I told Darcy that when I am old she needs to find a really noisy nursing home to move me in. Not noisy with the sounds of dementia, yelling nonsense profanity over and over...I don't mean that sort of environment. I mean a place that is alive with enthusiasm and rich with diversity...where we don't all look the same and sound the same. Grant, poor dear, is a quiet soul trapped in a very enthusiastic, noisy family as it is...so, it was not surprising that he quickly followed my comment with instructions of his own for Darcy...she is to move him to a very quiet, boring nursing home. All he asks for is a private room with a big screen TV. He doesn't want to be pestered by the presence of other residents! It is so sad that after so many years of harmonious marriage, it seems we will be sent to separate nursing homes.... oh well....




(Rayna is pictured here with her Grandma and her Great Grandma. And, later, at the restaurant, I noticed Rayna was wearing her Grandmother's glasses, as usual!)