Her Residents

Taking ownership is not always a bad thing.

From the time the quartet arrived unannounced at the facility, Nancy the Activities Director led them around from room to room in search of lonely and neglected residents who need to be cheered up on a Valentine’s Day. Unfortunately, all of them needed cheering up because they were bed ridden, with their eyes and ears glued to television programming they had little control over.

Nancy knocked first, opened the door, and called out their name. She asked if they wanted a couple of guys to come sing them a love song or two. The quartet’s song list was only six songs long, but included Let Me Call You Sweetheart, always a favorite.

Before getting to each door, Nancy gave a synopsis of the resident.

-Joe just had his leg amputated yesterday.

-Sheri lost her husband less than a week ago and is still pretty depressed.

-Marlene is always in a foul mood but who knows, we could get lucky.

-Victoria lost her husband on Valentine’s Day four years ago, so it could be bittersweet.

One by one, Nancy summarized, knocked, announced, and chatted briefly with the resident.

“We’re ready for you,” she called out from inside the room and then introduced the guys to the resident.

Twenty rooms and twenty residents later, the quartet finished. Nancy had memorized two of the songs herself because she heard them so much.

The point was, these were Nancy’s residents, her people. She was taking care of them the way she knew how. If it meant knocking on individual doors to cheer up her people, she would do just that. If she had to drag a fancy barbershop quartet along with her, then she’d do that too.

And even after the quartet had sung their last song and she was sitting alone in her office humming Let Me Call You Sweetheart because she heard it so many times, it was worth it because her residents were worth it.

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