While I was practising with Heather in the Yoga Shed this morning, she told me this story which follows on my post yesterday about our choir’s concert at the Wingham nursing home.

Eve, your post reminded me of a time when my father first went into a nursing home, at age 87, in the final stages of Parkinsons disease. Parkinsons is especially nasty because it often gives people what’s called a mask or frozen face, resulting in the inability to show any expression or even to speak. That was my father’s condition in those final stages.
Meantime, my mother had made friends among members of a little band that played for seniors. They discovered she was an accomplished drummer and invited her to join them.
So it was that one afternoon Mum’s new band played at the nursing home where Dad was now residing. I sat beside my father, who was in his wheelchair, and held his hand while the band set up. When Mum (who was simply adored by my father) started to play her drums, rocketing into action as she always does, Dad’s hand clamped onto mine, and tears leaked down his motionless cheek and jaw.
I too was overwhelmed, and I would be back there in a flash, if only I could.