A time to forget about forgetting

For eight hours a week, these friends receive a dose of activity, arts and companionship with a hot meal on the side. Even if, and especially if, they may not remember it.

On my visit last month to Flathead Respite Care, which takes place in the basement of Bethlehem Lutheran Church, program Director Kim Grose warmly welcomed me.  

“We’re just moving from art to music now,” she said as she and the other volunteers untied their aprons. On the tables were the result of that morning’s tiny field trip, when everyone went to see the apple trees at the edge of the parking lot, heavily laden with white flowers.  

The artwork, made using cotton swabs as brushes on black paper, showed everyone’s vision. None were alike. All showed vibrant perspective and some of the infinite ways to paint a tree. Plucked blossoms on the table showed there was attention and curiosity for the form. The tableau would have been at home in any school’s art department. 

For music, the eight “friends,” which is what the participants are called, arranged themselves along with as many volunteers around a few tables and delved into a songbook. Soon enough they were belting out “Hound Dog,” “Yellow Submarine” and “Sippin’ Cyder.” At one point Grose, who has a fine voice for leading singalongs, forgot how a particular tune went. “I can’t remember,” she said. “Imagine that!” 

It’s an in-joke for the rest of us as she told me later: There is no talk of dementia or memory loss when the friends are present. This is a time apart from that.

In fact, she said it is common for the participants to believe they are coming to school, or to volunteer themselves. She said, “They’ll sometimes ask, ‘How did I do?’” 

Near the end of the session, the caregivers and spouses started arriving. Some waited just outside the room. Others joined the group. 

Paul came to pick up his wife, Kate, saying her dementia had “been coming on for 15 years. It started the day I retired.” Now, he said, “she gets lost in the house,” but the time at Flathead Respite Care gives both of them a breather. “On the way home, she’ll be humming the songs.” 

Nearby Pattie waited for her husband, Michael, and said the program “is what he needed since he isn’t able to work. It gives him purpose.” 

Michael arrived with a beatific smile. “She had us walk out to the trees,” he reported. “They smelled really good.” 

Grose said the friends pay $40 for each four-hour session and stressed that the program is social, not medical. The aim is to serve 10 to 15 friends, with a desired 1-to-1 ratio for volunteers. She suspects the constraint will be the number and availability of volunteers, who so far also have provided the meals. 

One of them, Elaine, walked out as I did and chatted with me on the way to her car. She rebuffed my amazement at the volunteer lift and commitment: “We enjoy it as much as they do.” 

Margaret E. Davis, executive director of the Northwest Montana History Museum, can be reached at [email protected].