I was recently visiting with a neighbor across the hall of where my mother-in-law was staying.\u00a0When you spend four days at a nursing home, you have plenty of time to visit.<\/p>\n
This elderly gentleman spends every day with his wife, who is a resident suffering with Alzheimer\u2019s disease.\u00a0He is there from morning to evening.\u00a0He never leaves until he sees that they have properly prepared his wife for the night.\u00a0 He says, \u201cI don\u2019t have to stay, but I have to stay.\u201d\u00a0 I understood completely.\u00a0What a loving and caring husband!\u00a0This woman is blessed.<\/p>\n
I could tell he wanted to talk as we passed in the hall the other day.\u00a0We had spoken briefly before, but not for an extended amount of time and not about anything of much substance.\u00a0This time, he started talking about how he was a veteran.\u00a0His time of war made him very anti-government and opinionated, which surprised me a little bit.\u00a0I listened to him as he told me of his various stances on social and political issues.\u00a0He and I did not agree about everything, but in the end, he thanked me for listening to him.\u00a0He knew I did not agree with every issue he raised, but he appreciated that I gave him the time to talk.\u00a0He said I was better than \u201cthe guys\u201d down at McDonald\u2019s!\u00a0 I guess that was a compliment.<\/p>\n
He asked me what I did for a living.\u00a0When I told him I was in arts management and presented concerts, I\u2019m not sure he knew how to respond.\u00a0But it made me think about how people can have such differing opinions and yet still get along.\u00a0I told this gentleman (Dave) that even though we don\u2019t see things the same way, we can still be friends and appreciate the perspective we each have.<\/p>\n
In the world of arts and music, people certainly have their own opinions of what is good.\u00a0They also have their own opinions of what they do and do not enjoy.\u00a0\u201cDifferent strokes for different folks\u201d is how the saying goes, and it certainly is true in politics, as well as music.<\/p>\n
So when I say I think such and such concert will be good and enjoyable, I certainly understand that not everyone will share my opinion.\u00a0However, I do so appreciate those who are willing to listen and occasionally give it a try.\u00a0By listening, I think we can all learn.<\/p>\n
I enjoy learning from older, more experienced people.\u00a0I find their age to be such an asset in wisdom.\u00a0Each year, I become more and more like Dave; hopefully, more wise and understanding.<\/p>\n
Variety in music and entertainment gives everyone the opportunity to seek out new ways to grow culturally.\u00a0It may also give you something to talk about with the boys at McDonald\u2019s!<\/p>\n
FIN\u00c9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was recently visiting with a neighbor across the hall of where my mother-in-law was staying.\u00a0When you spend four days at a nursing home, you have plenty of time to visit. This elderly gentleman spends every day with his wife, who is a resident suffering with Alzheimer\u2019s disease.\u00a0He is there from morning to evening.\u00a0He never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-12 17:14:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71542\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}