I just spent the sweetest afternoon with sweet seniors citizens.
I’ve only painted the nails of my own girls before, but today, I got to file nails of a 92 year old WWII Veteran and hear about his duty to our country. We applauded the other veterans in the room after on senior citizen read a poem he wrote about the Civil War.
I then got to massage the hands and manicure the nails of a sweet woman who could barely hear a word I said even though we sat face to face. I did get to find the movie showing times for her, though, and she thought it was so convenient that I could find out about a movie on my phone! 🙂
Finally, I got to file, massage and paint the nails of a sweet 88 year old woman. She asked me how long I’ve lived in the area, no less than 5 times. She told me how beautiful my teeth were, no less than 4 times. The told me that she had two husbands die before the one she has now, at least 3 times.
She told me that she works hard in the garden and landscapes her yard all on her own. She told me that she played the organ in the church for many years and played the violin and the piano for others when she was young. As I massaged her hands with lotion, she told me she thinks she has very ugly hands.
I looked straight into her green eyes and told her that she is beautiful. That I could only wish to be as beautiful as she is at the young age of 88 (or 86–she couldn’t remember). That her hands are beautiful for the ways that she has loved others with her hands through music over the years. How she brings beauty through her hands in her garden.
She wanted to refuse the compliment. I was surprised that at 88 years old, she still was disappointed in her hands, her teeth and her eyes (they were green but she really had hoped that they would be blue like her father’s).
I stepped away and was reminded how important it is that we are satisfied with the things we cannot change about ourselves while we are young, lest, when we are old, we will have trained ourselves to be so dissatisfied that we will never fully be content.
If this woman had known how lovely she was. How she blessed my day by merely letting me care for her in such a small way. She would know that she is surely a treasure to behold.
