From the mouths of Senior Citizens

One of our residents is out of it most of the time. They chatter and what they say goes together, but it's not relevant to the moment. They will recite prayers or talk about what their favorite foods are. You have to get their attention and ask them a direct question to get an answer and sometimes you have to ask them more than once to bring them back from wherever their mind has wandered.

On occasion, this resident will ask for something: pop, water, bananas. Or they'll tell you they want to get up or go to bed, but this is rare at best. The other day, however, the resident looked at one of our male aides and said, "You need a shave." And he did. I told him he'd better go shave because if the resident commented on it, it needed to be done. He promised the resident he'd shave before coming to work again.

I hope I never stop being amazed.