Old People

Yesterday, the sun was shining warm on my skin. I had my props sorted and I was off to do some “walkabout” at an old folks’ home for "Carnival Day". Walkabout means that I do close-up magic and make balloon animals. But having worked with seniors, I know it’s mostly about talking with them and making them laugh. They like to laugh.

 

This particular job was a little tougher because they were all REALLY senior. Most of them were at least in their eighties and nearly all were confined to wheelchairs or hobbling slowly with walkers. Some gazed off into space and left me wondering what they were thinking about…or what the world looked like to them.

 

At the pie throwing booth, the physical therapist had her head thrust forward and was happily taking cream pie after cream pie in the face. Each time she did, the crowd applauded in a reserved old people way. A few hollered things like “It serves you right,” and the whole group would laugh.

 

“She hurts us, you know,” confided Sophie. “She makes us exercise. Every day. But we love her anyway.”

 

I met her for the first time yesterday. Sophie is confined into what is essentially a rolling bed. She has only one leg and arthritis has twisted her fingers into parodies of what they once were.

 

But Sophie turned out for the carnival in a colorful moo moo, a ridiculously garish hat with little red pom poms taped to the brim and way too many rings and bracelets. When she spoke I had to listen very carefully because she couldn’t move the right side of her face very well. But she laughed at the magic and she clapped her crippled hands when I made a balloon dog dance at the end of a leash.

 

I was feeling quite emotional looking at these people, which is not at all cool when you are supposed to be entertaining them. Sometimes they would doze off in the middle of a trick they’d asked to see. Sometimes they pleaded for a balloon like a child would and then wander off forgetting you were even there.

 

Sometimes I would talk with them and see them nod – but know all the while they had no idea what I was saying to them…but they were glad, I think, just to have someone talking and laughing with them.

 

I was thinking, wondering actually, if they had lived too long. So many of them were simply gone…many moved in obvious pain…and a number were trembling with cold, despite the hot sun beating down on them and the layers of blankets they wore.

 

Then Sophie and her attendant rolled up beside me. She smiled with the half of her mouth that still worked. (And in case you are a skeptical type…no…I’m not making any of this up.) She started telling me about her life. She told me about the war and how her son died when he was three and no one knew why. She told me about nights when they didn’t have enough to eat and how her husband just disappeared one day and no one ever found out where he went.

 

Then she smiled and said “Can you make me something colorful? I want to take it back to my room.”

 

I did.

 

And I realized that Sophie hadn’t lived too long. She was still very much engaged in that process and the thought I’d had earlier shamed me just a little.

 

So this is for you, “Sugar.”

 

I fully expect to show it to you the next time we meet.

 

I’m glad we made each other smile.

 

Done