Babysitting

Singing in harmony

Last night I spent some time alone with my sister who has Alzheimer’s Disease. See https://medium.com/off-at-a-tangent/b58603be850c for another post on this. Sometimes it is really difficult to deal with as the person you know and love is occluded by this pernicious disease.

I took a pack of cards with the idea that maybe we could play Snap. You know the children’s game of matching two cards and trying to win the whole pile before your opponent can? It was pretty evident after a couple of rounds that she just wasn’t up to it as she couldn’t figure out which side of the card to put down, nor could she match the numbers.

On to Plan B. Having wondered whether cards might not work, I’d also packed some stuff so I could do a manicure for her. Shaping her nails and doing a hand massage went down a treat. No fancy colour required, but clear varnish was deemed to be fine.

It’s strange how the mind pulls stuff out for you and I asked her if she remember the old brown song book we used to have as kids. This song book contained classics such as “Banks of Loch Lomond” through to “Ilkley Moor B’tat”. So I started singing a few of the opening bars. To my delight, she joined in, harmonising well. Now I have to confess I can carry a tune, but harmonies are somewhat beyond me… so I was feeling … well… jealous… But the joy of hearing her join in and know more words than I did was a lovely thing to experience.

Some of the songs I chose were choruses from church ventures, but she knew all the words and actions. How I was transported back to singing these as we travelled on long-distance very boring car journeys in the days when there were very few motorways. “Wide, wide as the ocean, high as the heavens above…”

For those moments last night, we reconnected again … for those moments we were as one, singing our hearts out. For those moments, I had my sister back. And it was grand.