Those Enchanted Evenings

Sitting in a room of older adults at The Forest at Duke--most of them 80 years and over--we listened to Sam, the music instructor, play the piano. As usual, he ended his weekly session on music appreciation with a show tunes sing-a-long. A resident requested "Some Enchanted Evening" from South Pacific.

As some of the residents sang and others nodded their heads and still others seemed asleep, the collective memories of hundreds of enchanted evenings took over the room. Lives nearly over, passions long gone but not forgotten.

For a brief moment, feelings of love and loss rendered everything else meaningless.