If Only...

If only I could get more "olders" to get up & get out.  Have seen the profound impact just going out to dinner can have, and the even greater impact of heading up the River Road to hear Barbara Trent perform her smooth jazz vocals at the Centre Bridge Inn.  What I would give to become a Pied Piper of olders, getting more of them to concerts in Philadelphia, out to delightful dinners where they're treated like royals, to hear a great songstress caress legendary songs!

Makes me cringe, thinking about the smaller lives so many olders face, so many people who are resigned to a smaller space, smaller expectations, smaller opportunities.  I'm all about BIGGER, about more, about expanding what is to whatever new limit it can reach.

When it was time for Whitney's wedding shower, way back in 2000, Mom hesitated, leery about going.  What a pity, I thought, if she doesn't make the attempt.  Maybe it would end with us at the shower, maybe it wouldn't, but Mom would have succeeded simply by making the attempt.  So off we went, Mom emboldened by my reassurances of turning around the second she felt she wasn't up to it.  She knew she had control, as assuredly as if she was driving.  Having the freedom to say NO also gave her the freedom to say YES.  And we got all the way to Berwyn, all the way to D'Entremonts, to the front door, to the party.  That success - directed by Mom - made way for more outings, until there wasn't so much as a smidgen of hesitation.  

There are several reasons I take one of my grannie clients up to Centre Bridge Inn to hear Barbara sing.  For one thing, she shared a love of jazz with her beloved husband.  Hearing the great standards, especially by an artist that gives quite a few a Dixieland swing, brings him to mind - when she hears a song she enjoyed with her beloved, for brief moments even I can almost feel his presence.  Last night, a couple around my age got up & danced as Barbara san Roberta Flack's signature, The First Time (ever I saw your face);  my dear older became all soft affection,  just watching the two of them.  Watching her face, her body language, touched my heart as much as watching them.

Plenty a lot of people who've downsized from a house to a more manageable apartment still have many opportunities to sense being fully alive, to feel heart touched.  Alas, there are also a lot who don't, who move through downsized lives with downsized experiences.

If only I could reach out to them, convince them to go out for a whirl, find out what they loved to do, find something that connects to it.  It might not be possible to make an older's life BIG, but how I'd love to make more at least a little bigger, a bit more fully connected to the larger life present moment.  

Maybe a good start would be by changing my "If only..." thought to a "Someday" determination!