Personal Narrative: Morningside Assisted Living

Wanderlust is vital to unearthing the knowledge of the world. This sentiment is carefully cut from the shiny paper of magazine articles and affixed with a purple tack to a simple bulletin board. Myriad boards similar to this one rest outside of each door in the residential section of Morningside Assisted Living Facility. This particular board, bursting with green torch-bearing women and famous towers, blends in with the others and their snapshots of white gowns, mistletoe, and sticky children faces. Lining the rooms of the residents, these memories etched into paper are no more than an impression of light. The people in this home are like those pictures, an impression of the lives they had to give up when they were placed here. Unlike

The workers and volunteers carry plates of institutional style food and place them in front of the residents who act thankful for the dry pork and mushed vegetables. Some residents simply stare at their meals, barely able to eat for themselves. Others are bound to a wheelchair with hands contorted underneath their bodies at awkward angles. Even more sit by themselves, quiet and forlorn, stabbing at a potato wedge to move it from one side of the plate to another. In many ways, however, the dining hall is where the people breathe life into the facility. Laughter rings through the hall from many tables as residents engage in conversation and talk about their plans for the

Her answer surprises me. I expect her to give the typical response of a few small towns in South Carolina, like Greenville or Charleston, but what she says instead catches me by surprise. She believes that travel is the key to education and that experiencing new cultures is the epitome of life-altering experiences. She has been to almost ten different countries in Europe and is a passionate traveler. She has also been across North America and to several countries in South America. Mrs. Corkie smiles widely as she gets lost in her stories of her travels. She continues to talk and I listen to her tell tales of eating crepes in Paris and seeing Big Ben in London. We talk for over an hour as she tells me about her adventures traveling with her husband in their youth. She has experienced many things that others can only hope to accomplish in their lives. Soon, she decides that she needs to head to her room to go to sleep. I settle into another table to interact with another group of elderly residents until it is time to leave the facility. I think I hear piano music floating melodiously through the halls as the sun sets on another day at the nursing home. I am walking out the automatic door with the other students in my room. We round a corner to the bus and I notice an airplane flying overhead. I imagine Mrs. Corkie catching a glimpse of it from her window, wondering where it might be headed and what knowledge might be gained by