When I was in third grade, my class's teacher had this thing with taking us to a local elderly home around every holiday and having us do little gigs to amuse the elderly folks. I was a naïve little kid back then, so I had no opinion on what I was doing (although sometimes the budding skeptic in me would awaken and wonder, "These songs are silly. If they don't entertain me, how do they entertain the elderly?"), but now that I look back, I'm a little offended at the fact that my teacher thought we were a free source of entertainment because we were cute little children who would do whatever our teacher told us to do.
But that's besides the point. What stuck out to me most about this experience was hearing about what happened to one of the elderly a week after our first visit. My memory of what was actually told is very fuzzy and it's possible that what I imagined happened is completely different from what actually happened.
So it turned out one of the women left the nursing home. I distinctly imagined this as a rather rotund old lady rushing out of the nursing home in a black flowery dress, with half the nursing staff rushing after her, shouting at her to stop and go back. Despite her age, the old woman outran the staff, escaped the parking lot, and disappeared down a street.
It was an amusing little image, of course, but as I was at an age when the impossible was probable and strange was normal, I believed my imagination to the last word despite the incident's implausibility.
In my head, I was cheering for that lady. You go, girl! I thought, You show them!
"She did not have to be there anymore," said my teacher.
She never belonged there, I thought, never wanted to be there.
I cheered that old lady on as she charged down that side walk on her bare feet, panting, sweat beading on her red face. I applauded her as she turned round the bend and finally returned to her home, to her family, who for all this time had patiently been awaiting her return.
