How music rekindles the lines of fading memory

From Amy Adams, in Springfield, Oregon.

Today at the memory care facility:

It was a robust and responsive group, glad to sing – even the ones who slip in and out of sleep did so gently, just under the surface of a nap. Glenn was tickled by “Brand New Key” enough that he went dancing with a caregiver.

I love seeing things like that.

But the real hour’s blessing for me was how they listened to the beginning of this country ballad – several of the ladies searching their memories, thinking, thinking…
I took it slow.
“She was forty-one, her daddy still called her baby.”
More thinking, nodding from the residents…suitcase in her hand…
…mysterious….dark-haired man…some recognition.

Then ah, that chorus, like a congregation they all slowly sang with me, I swear…even the sleeping woman’s lips moved:

Delta Dawn,
What’s that flower you have on?
Could it be a faded rose from days gone by?
And did I hear you say he was meeting you here today, to take you to his mansion in the sky…?

I’m telling you, you haven’t seen anything like an elderly sleeping woman, singing about the mansion in the sky.