Sharing Your Gifts

Last Sunday, our three violinists played Christmas carols with their Suzuki violin class at a retirement community. It was a beautiful program. I love to have the children visit the elderly. They get so much joy in seeing young people.

My mom really modeled for me to have respect for the elderly. She took me to retirement homes to visit elderly relatives when I was young. And most recently, she took care of her mother who was suffering from Alzheimers until her death.

When I was around 11 years old, I had a paper route. I delivered papers at an assisted living facility. When I collected the $$, sometimes I was invited in their rooms and we would chat a bit. I can't imagine my children collecting $$ for a paper route now, and especially wouldn't like the idea of them going inside people's rooms or homes, but it was different back then - or at least we were all naive. Anyway, as we would share stories, some of the residences found out that I played the piano and wanted to hear me play. So, one time, I stuck my piano music in my bag of newspapers and when the route was finished, I played some pieces for a handful of residences. They enjoyed hearing me play - mistakes and all. I eventually realized that these people were so anxious to see a young person, it didn't matter what was played. I decided that I would practice my lessons at the retirement facility - scales and all! They didn't care.

So, it gives me great joy to see my children using their music abilities and time to be a blessing to others. What a waste to play music just for yourself when you can bring a little sunshine to others. Here are a couple pics. This is the chaplain who interviewed our 7-yr old. He didn't seem to have any stage fright - lol.


Ok - working on a laptop, not having my photo editing software to crop is a pain - lol.