Think of a time you heard a classic song come on the radio, an old favorite from years ago. You’re driving along, perhaps, or doing the dishes when those first notes come through the stereo, and suddenly you’re back in time, highway driving in your first car or dancing the night away at prom. You can hardly remember what you ate for breakfast that morning, but somehow you can remember every word to that 80’s cult classic and the names of everyone in the band. That’s the uncanny power of music—nothing transports us so quickly to other times and places, and nothing quite so easily primes the feelings and emotions that are deeply connected with past experiences.

But that’s not its only power, not for Lindsey Perrault and the residents at the Woods at MapleCreek. On a given Saturday morning, the Woods’ dining room is transformed into a veritable concert hall, complete with guitars, tone chimes, and most importantly, a chorus of voices. While caregivers and nurses move about their daily tasks, the echo of vintage tunes reverberates through the halls and offices, from “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” to “Wild Irish Rose” to “Auld Lang Syne,” sung by the residents themselves and led by Perrault, one of the Woods’ Activity Coordinators, a Board Certified Music Therapist (MT-BC), and a member of the Grand Rapids Symphony Choir. 

“Music can also be used as a tool,” Perrault informs me after a morning of singing with the residents, “it can be used to reach functional goals.” Such goals include increasing social skills, improving memory and mood, decreasing physical pain, and motivating activity. Certainly there are other activities meant to do as much, but none so aesthetically pleasing, and none that share another of music’s peculiar advantages: because music is stored in and uses many different areas of the brain, damage or deterioration to one area does not prevent a person from participating. For residents of the Woods, the majority of who carry cognitive deficits to a certain extent, music thus becomes a particular blessing, a means of reaching across the divide, of communicating and expressing themselves both personally and to one another. 

Perrault is very intentional in the songs she chooses (songs from a person’s twenties, apparently, are best for long term memory), and she is more than happy to share the rationale behind each specifically; songs like “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean” and “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” for example, provide visual cues for clapping and other upper extremity exercises, while others such as “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” prompt emotional mirroring and feeling response. Residents are even able to participate directly in the music-making, casting tone chimes to “Auld Lang Syne” as a group.

Of course, the music is not meant to be wholly practical. The other dimension of music therapy is the one to which we can all relate, that aspect of song which feeds our inner lives, strongly manifested in the hymn-singing that takes place on Sunday afternoons. Again with Perrault’s lead, the residents sing many of the church favorites—“Amazing Grace,” etc.—and the effect is certainly moving. For many of the Woods’ residents, access to the inner self is increasingly clouded, at times impossible. And yet, it seems, with every resident joining together in chorus, the human side is being reached. The dam bursts, memories flood, and as Perrault puts it, “the spirit revives. It’s special—it really brings out so much life.” Witness the lively, boisterous scene on Saturday mornings or the peaceful, meditative sobriety of hymn-singing on Sundays afternoons, and you’ll know what she’s talking about.

“Cut throat.” It’s a word that usually describes pirates, politicians, and certain citizens of Wall Street. Oddly enough, it also applies to certain residents of MapleCreek. How, you ask, could such a sinister adjective possibly be attached to the dear denizens of a retirement community? The answer might surprise you. But then again, it might not.

During the work week, the Woods’ lobby is an ever-changing, at times unpredictable scene of hustle and bustle, but one constant I can always rely on is the regular afternoon card game that takes place at the corner table near the coffee pots, and it is not to be missed: four-player, winner-take-all Uno. The scene itself is a bit of an irony: nowhere is the dark, smoky, fiendish atmosphere of some back alley card club, exchanged instead for the effervescent, cheerful environment of the Woods’ lobby. But don’t be fooled, warns Judy Hoult, a daughter of one of the residents and the game’s main facilitator, your grandmother’s game of Uno this is not—“These ladies are card sharks! It’s all business when you’re at the table.”

Of course, even as she says this, a smirk touches her lips; with cards in hand, Judy visits her mother Margaret frequently during the week, and she sees firsthand the big smiles that a competitive game of cards can bring to the residents’ faces, most of whom were probably raised playing some game or another. For her own mother, playing cards was almost nightly ritual—growing up in the country, Judy reminds me, in the days before the Internet or movies, card-playing was the done thing. “You either played cards or went to bed, and mother rarely went to bed.” For Margaret’s family, the game was Euchre (another four-player battle royale), and sessions would sometimes last well into the morning hours. Now the game is Uno, and games last only an hour or so, but with her daughter’s help, Margaret still carries that fiery passion for a good game of cards with friends and neighbors.

I myself can’t help but smile at the ladies of the corner game, catching snippets of laughter and conversation as I move about my office tasks. Perhaps it’s the mood that the game creates: seeing the life that a simple deck of cards can bring to the residents here is encouraging, and there’s something comforting about the nearness, the familiarity of the lobby ritual. More likely, though, it’s the heavy nostalgia that certain moments of the game bring. For my family it was Scrabble—listening to Judy and Margaret reminisce, I can’t help but think of my own family’s late night-sessions, the laughter, the fierceness, the drama. Does it surprise me, then, that a game of Uno in the afternoon can turn cut throat?  Like I said, for my family, it was Scrabble. 

Winter afternoons can be a bit dull, what with the cold, the clouds, the crust of ice and snow covering the sidewalks. There are times, of course, when this kind of weather is just what my mood calls for, but such a mood demands a delicate mixture of coffee, cookies, and cozy, and is normally reserved for weekends. This, unfortunately, is Monday, and Old Man Michigan seems arrayed in his finest drear and drab.

Connie Wiersma and Nora Kuipers have a solution, “a little light,” as they describe it, “for these wintry afternoons.” As they speak, a warm, familiar aroma fills the small kitchenette where we sit, and a slight ding from the nearby oven assures me that everything will be alright—cookies! The two ladies waste no time; oven mitts on, spatulas at the ready, you can think of them as MapleCreek’s own heroic tandem, a dynamic duo battling simultaneously the Winter Grays and Monday Blues.  Slowly the oven opens, revealing a mouthwatering batch of chocolate chip cookies.

Every Monday from 2pm-4pm, Connie and Nora volunteer at the Woods at MapleCreek, serving cookies, juice, and (you guessed it) coffee to each person they meet. Connie, herself a resident at the Terraces, and Nora, who has previous experience working in another retirement community, know how big of a difference small gestures of service can make to the residents: “I love to serve this population,” Nora tells me. “They need us to show them love, to show them that these can be great years in life.” A little cookie, in other words, can go a long way in fostering community life here at the Woods, where for two hours a week everyone in the dining room is smiling for the same reason, residents and staff alike (I myself have been known to eat one or two….).

But, as is so often the case, Connie finds the time and effort she puts in to blessing others constantly coming full-circle, so that volunteering, in some respects, becomes a privilege. When Connie first moved into the Terraces, she knew she wanted to get involved around the campus, and a myriad of opportunities were readily available; serving cookies caught her eye, however, because the name “Nora Kuipers,” who at that time had already been serving the Woods for a while, somehow sounded familiar. As it turns out, the two were members of the same church years back, and their kids were in grade school together. Right away, then, baking cookies on Monday afternoons became a great way for the two to reconnect. Even more so, though, Connie’s experience in volunteer work has led to a sense of personal fulfillment and satisfaction that she did not expect initially, a relationship with the Woods’ residents that she now covets: “I look forward to Mondays. I enjoy being with the residents here. It brings light to my life too.”

Looking forward to Mondays? Hard to believe, but it’s true—I thank the ladies and take my leave, but not before a fresh cookie is thrust into my hand and an enthusiastic “we’ll be here next week!” left ringing in my ears. Thank God…..    

A gift spearheaded by MapleCreek Chaplain Becky Ebb-Speese has provided plants for a new butterfly garden at The Woods at MapleCreek in Grand Rapids. Pastor Becky directed that memorial gifts for her father, retired Lutheran pastor Kenneth, Ebb, be used for the garden. Pastor Ebb lived at The Woods at the end of his life. “He loved gardening, so we thought that the butterfly garden would be a good place to use his memorial contributions,” said Pastor Becky. Jodi Wise and Osmin Reyes, activities aides at The Woods, planted butterfly-attracting plants, including herbs, coneflowers, cosmos, black-eyed susans and Shasta daisies (photo). Beth Terborg, life enrichment coordinator for The Woods, hopes to add more plants, a nectar feeder, a butterfly house, and maybe a small tree.