"B" is a tall, kind man who is in his mid 80's. As he sits listening and enjoying the songs I play on solo clarinet, I segue into his personal favourite~ The Marine's Hymn.
As he does every time I play this for him (and I play it every time I'm in his unit, which is now his residence), he responds with a mix of laughter and tears. It's not sadness he's expressing but the strong emotions of remembered memory. That song is deeply embedded in the limbic region of his brain~ it brings back the pride, comradery, youth, fear, joy and yearning of a time now far away.
Anyway, today I ask "B" where he was during WWII. He tells me, with a mix of pride and humility, that he was at Iwo Jima during the raising of the Flag. He didn't raise the flag himself~ he'd been shot in the side. When he went home, he says, he brought two containers of the soil.
"B" has seen a lot in his life, and experienced more loss than many of us, I'm sure. His wife is gone, most of his friends, the jobs and homes he's lived in over the years. But something as simple as a song makes it all real again.
"B" of course has a form of dementia, but the history of his life isn't lost... unless we stop listening.
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