Hidden Gifts and Hidden Talents

Hidden Gifts and Hidden Talents

August 25, 2014

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By Robert Lentz OFM
My mother has been a resident in a nursing home for some 10 years now. She has dementia as well as the disease of Alzheimer’s. One of the consequences of living apart from my very demonstrative and expressive father, is that my mother’s humorous side has emerged. No longer living in the shadow of her husband, who was always very jovial and quite boisterous, my mother has felt freer to express herself, crack jokes, and be playful with the staff and those who come to visit her. As her son, it has been wonderful to be a witness to my mom’s wit, to be able to tease her, and to see a very different side of her. Perhaps this funny side was always part of my mother’s character, but it had to lay dormant and in the shadows. It took a safe environment and a supportive community for my mother’s gift of humor to reveal itself. I am just grateful, that although she has significant cognitive problems, I am able to see and participate in this incredible gift my mother has been given.

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