Bram. Giving and receiving in EHPADs, intense moments

Let’s not forget the elders in EHPAD, “the forgotten ones of Sunday” as in the magnificent book dedicated to them by Valérie Perrin. Once a month in each nursing home in Bram, Fanjeaux and Montreal, a team of volunteers and employees from the Bram media library are invited to bring outside life through books and songs. Geneviève excels in storytelling, in her gestures and her ease. Christine, Anne, Stéphanie and Nathalie read literary extracts, condensed from happiness, stories that end well, love, friendship, wisdom, morals, poems by Victor Hugo, Paul Eluard, Jean d’Ormesson, etc.. Raymond Devos for the epic intelligence of laughter, La Fontaine’s fables sung in chorus, engraved in each white head, defying the ravages of time. But their preference, which lights up a string of stars in their eyes, with the impatience that makes their hearts beat, is to sing! In unison, popular songs from times gone by, songs of post-war jubilation, of liberation, songs of their youth which continue beyond the vicissitudes of life, to free them from the shackles of oblivion and age! La vie en rose by Piaf, Bourvil, the singing madman Trenet, Blue java and the dresses fitted at the waist which twirled to the sound of the accordion, on the arms of the partners dressed in their Sunday best and slicked up. “Ha! The little white wine” that we drank under the arbors…. or “do you want to dance grandma, do you want to dance grandpa, just like in the good old days, when you were 20, to a tune that reminds you how beautiful life was…”. How beautiful she was and how fragile she is! The ancients are our living memories, memories of a world from which we come. These are wonderful sharing of memories revived in songs, returned a hundredfold by a flow of feelings, of family love, intergenerational, so precious, unfortunately ephemeral in the limited time of our mothers and fathers. They are the source of our life. No matter their age, because souls are beautiful!