Saturdays with Seniors: Veronica’s Good Memories

I am pleased to introduce Veronica Cook as our Saturdays with Seniors guest blogger today. A former nun, Veronica worked at the Northern Trust Bank for years before retirement. Happily married and a longtime resident of Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, she says one of her most valued achievements was leading a task force to successfully procure one-and-a-quarter million dollars for a Chicago Park District project to rehabilitate North Pond into the wildlife preserve it is today. Now she values her participation in the Good Memories choir and in memoir-writing classes. When I assigned “So Long” as the prompt for the final meeting of Veronica’s summer six-week memoir class, she came back with an essay that ends with a valuable life lesson for us all.

Only For So Long

The Good Memories choir, back when choirs could assemble.

by Veronica Cook

Throughout my life I’ve found deep joy in making music, especially with others. So it was a glorious windfall to be accepted to sing and harmonize in the Good Memories choir under a professional like Jonathan Miller.

No audition necessary, no questions asked about experience or ability either. Want to sing? OK, you’re in!

I’m already nostalgic for the Summer Rocks concert we did last year. I was in my glory, belting out my favorite part in the Jersey Boys Medley, where the low voices (I’m one of them) are begging Sherry, “Why don’t you come on….come on…..come on!” We were in peak form, singing in the Sheraton Grand Hotel’s main banquet hall to close a conference of organizers for a senior living option called the “Village Movement.” We knew we’d aced it when they rose in a standing ovation!

Lunch afterwards was down on Chicago’s Riverwalk under a red awning, with countless boats providing entertainment. The day was perfect. I just wanted to stay and soak up summer and the warm glow of the music my friends and I had been part of. I wanted it to go on and on, but it could only be so long, and then the day was over.

After our weekly practices, fellow singers Sheila, Regan and I would stroll over to Bloomingdale’s and head to the tiny “Forty Carrots,” their seemingly undiscovered eatery on the sixth floor. We always found a table, and Brian would be there smiling, serving the latest savory dish created by their remarkable kitchen. He never rushed us. We’d just hang out in a comfy booth, sometimes so long that my husband would call to see if everything was OK!

Now I wonder if Brian found another job, because surely this small café is gone for good. This lovely time together, this charming place was only ours for so long.

No matter what “opening up” takes place in our city and neighborhood, singing in the same physical space together will be the last thing to happen. When will it ever be OK to :

1. be inside, and
2. sit close to one another, and most basically…
3. sing out, projecting our breath freely into the air?

By then, for many of us, time will have passed us by.

How could I guess that this totality of the Good Memories experience was soon to be in the past: all those delightful songs, the partnering with memory challenged friends, the rich camaraderie. Only a few months have gone by since the shutdown, and yet when I remember Good Memories, the overwhelming happiness of being with everyone in that choir seems long gone. It brings tears to acknowledge the reality: I only had it for so long.

This awareness is important. I need to realize that it’s like all the gifts in my life, even this very day, this present time. I need to pay very close attention, to profoundly treasure what I can only have…for so long.