Piano at the memory care center

This morning, I got the opportunity to perform on the piano at a memory care facility nearby. When I went into the center, there were seniors of all ages, some sitting on couches, some eating, and others sleeping. As soon as I got seated on the piano bench, I began to play pieces that I had memorized. A few minutes pass, and a senior that was in a wheelchair began to speak words anxiously and seemed as if she was reliving a bad memory. Soon, I started to play Gymnopédie, one of my favorite calming pieces to play. Around two minutes later, she became completely calm. In fact, she slowly fell asleep. Having seen this made me feel more empathetic for all the experiences that the seniors in memory care had to live through. I was proud to see that my musical skills were also making a deep impact on the lives of others.

After playing the piano for around 30 minutes, I headed into the game room in the assisted living facility, where the seniors were ready to play beanbag toss, a classic game that they called corn hole. One of the seniors was the referee, who would keep track of the scores of each player on a whiteboard. There were around 6 seniors: 2 men and 4 women. I would help set up the corn hole board to their individual liking because some of them were in wheelchairs while others were in chairs. We would yell "corn hole!" every time that a senior made it in. The best part of this friendly competition was getting to see the seniors' faces light up when they made beanbags into the hole. Playing corn hole allowed the seniors to forget about all of their worries in the world. Their only focus of the moment was to have a great time socializing with others and win :)