By Mina Friedler
We often assume that the residents in nursing homes wait for death, but I have found that they can give new life and understanding to those who visit them.
Sarah was in a wheelchair, smiling beguilingly at me. Her soft gray hair was carefully styled and her eyes twinkled with anticipation and intelligent curiosity.
“When I had a stroke,” she said, “my friend asked me why I was still smiling, why I didn’t take it seriously. I said that I still could move my right hand and the sun was still shining. Why should I be serious?”
Should I frown today
in misery
because I am shackled outside
the legs I cannot
move
and the arm I cannot
raise,
or should I smile
because I can
feed the birds
and the sun on my skin
is delectable today,
beckoning for me to come outside
and breath the bounteous air.
She chose to smile,
curtailing all doubts
that life flourished
in a wheelchair
at ninety-one.
When she smiled,
her joy trickled down
so that the languid man
in the wheelchair next to her
awoke,
clapping his hands to the music,
and the woman’s tears across the aisle
dried up until she sang,
and I began to understand
the meaning of Sarah’s choice.
Mina Friedler is a freelance writer and poet from Los Angeles, California. This is her third contribution to Jewish Action.