Musis is…
truth (Kerouac),
magic (Rowling), the
existence of God (Vonnegut), the
food of love (Shakespeare). Music is the self still alive, as evidenced
in the documentary
Alive Inside.
Alive Inside is the story of a social worker, Dan, who uses
music via personal music players, to awaken the inner lives of those afflicted with dementia or
other diseases whose existence is limited to a nursing home or long-term
care.
From our earliest beginnings, scientists have discovered
patterns in a baby’s cries which mimic those of a mother’s voice. The power to imitate, to repeat, to be moved. That is music.
I have spent hours with my mother, seated at her side in her
care home, where the strains of Tommy Dorsey, Billy Holliday, and her beloved
Frank Sinatra float between us. I can say with certainty, a surreal
recognition glides over her face, whether she is at rest, in the sun, or in bed, recognition far more powerful than recognition of my face, or that of my father
in their wedding picture. It is a recognition of self.
When Dan interviews one of his clients and asks, “What is it
you don’t remember, or would like to remember,” she replies, “Who I was, after
I was a young girl.” Dementia, Alzheimer’s, old age takes many back to the far
reaches of youth’s shore, but there are lost years that cannot be accessed by
a photograph, a spoken memory, even a daughter.
As outsiders, we don’t know which years are the lost ones. But
we can rule some out, speculate about others, and use music to zero in on a
few.
Were I to develop some kind of dementia, and my spouse or
children planned to place a music player to my ears, they for certain would
know to play The Boss, right?
But would they know to play ZZ Top, who I saw in concert in
college, with my ultra-conservative roommate Janice, and we played air guitars
to Sharp-Dressed Man, or would they
play Robert Palmer, for when my sister and I dressed as the Palmer girls one
Halloween during my first year living in Cincinnati? Would they select Joshua Kadison’s Beautiful in My Eyes, from my first
wedding, The Servant Song, from my
second? Would they know, when Seger’s Against the Wind plays, the song
conjures up memories of high school track, and from then on, every life
challenge I ever met and surmounted?
Or would they play Sinatra, as homage to my mother, and the
times she and I journeyed together and separate, seated in the sunshine on worn
wooden benches, each of us lost in a world our minds created?
Dan, the social worker has a worthy goal for his
Music and Memory program, placing personal music players inside 16,000 nursing homes
across the U.S. I don’t know if this
goal also includes long-term care centers such as my mother’s. And there are
plenty of logistical challenges to this, yet centers across the U.S. are
implementing this program every week.
A few weeks ago, I told the activities director
at Arden Courts, Becky, and the corporate nursing director, Jesse, about Alive Inside. I had been an early Kickstarter
funder for the movie, despite receiving no scrolling credits at the end. But I invested because I believed in its
mission. I had witnessed it firsthand. I
cheered when the movie was accepted at Sundance, and said, “Of course,” when Alive Inside won the Audience
Award. I badgered the producers, When will you come to Cincinnati,
because the movie had been out since July and only now, has it appeared in a
local theatre. Columbus got the screening before Cincinnati did.
Becky is now looking closely at the program, seeking funding
and discerning training methods. Offering
to assist in these efforts, I have spurred her on. After all, Becky is the
person who approached me, about bringing Matt Snow, Cincinnati’s Sinatra, to Arden Courts for my mother’s birthday, while
throwing a Spaghetti Dinner party for residents.
I am a bit young, by demographics, to be the daughter of a
woman of near 87. Many family visitors
are ten to fifteen years older, and have not been exposed to technology that can make an impact in the life of someone with dementia.
Even if Becky does not succeed in implementing the program,
the next generation of family caregivers, those in my age bracket who can maximize technology and whose parents are approaching the age in which they
might not access music on their own, will stimulate continued development of
programs like Music and Memory.
In ten years, Dan’s personal work will still continue to inspire
the likes of me, as I sit, grounded with my mother, and select just the right
song for her. She has a CD player at her
bedside, and one of my favorite past times, when she doesn’t feel like rising
from bed, is to play Louis Prima because he tosses Italian phrases into his
music that she repeats, and understands. Another unrealized benefit to music is that music in a foreign language reawakens another part of the mind, in
particular for my mother when her parents spoke Italian. I’ll also play a little Mario Lanza, just to
throw her a curve. She laughs when I sway at her bedside, and some days, she
will join me. It is the sweetest of times.
I have specific playlists for Mom, and make unwise use of
Pandora, which is why I have more data usage than the rest of the family. I
load up YouTube videos showing Frank actually singing with the Rat Pack, or
with just Dean Martin, and a drink in hand. When Mom visits our home, Mark cues up Sinatra on our sound system so that “Frank” is playing before she walks in the door, and she knows is she in a home that embraces who she is.
I can’t make my mother’s life perfect, and despite her best
efforts to do so when we were younger, it never was. Sometimes, I neglect to make an appointment
for her haircut. She has gone without
matching socks for a few weeks, because I forget until I arrive, then am too
tired when I leave to go shopping and return.
She doesn’t drink purple Gatorade, “tastes funny,” but I show up with
wrong color anyhow.
But the days we dance and sing and she nods to strains of
Sinatra are the best days, when I leave weeping and beaming. Tears because I am
so desperate to know that person in her lost years. Smiles because in some
small way my mother has found, or recognized, herself as being whole in those
moments of music.
When the movie was over, I walked out, and the only words
out of my mouth were, “Well, at least I didn’t cry for all 78 minutes.”
The stories were heartwarming and heartbreaking, but I cried only with joy. The one small gift I can my mother
over and over, is the gift of song, when my mother’s physical welfare takes a
back seat to the well-being of her soul.
