I looked up from my guitar as I was singing “Night Rider’s Lament” to see tears streaming down Don’s face. Don is in his 80s, residing in a hospice care home until Alzheimer’s disease, which has already taken much of who he was, takes him bodily. So it goes.

Music is almost all that is left of this world that puts Don at ease, so as a hospice volunteer, I have been asked to come and play and sing “some old country songs” for him every few weeks. Those old country songs that were new back when he first heard them. Back when he was in the military, back when he got married, back when he and his wife were working to raise a family. Back when his life was full of life.

The nurse asked Don why he was crying, and he softly said, “I remember that song.” In the few times I have visited Don, that’s the only time I’ve heard him speak, and what little he said, said so very much.

Night Rider’s Lament was written by Michael Burton and was first released by Jerry Jeff Walker in 1975. Since then, it has been performed by numerous artists, as tends to happen to a song that speaks a certain language in a certain way that touches so many people. Like Don.

This semester I started taking one of my classes on regular visits to a local nursing home to engage with the residents and for the residents to engage with the students. They all sit in a big circle and talk about life. Life that has passed, life as it is, and life that has yet to come.

Young and old, sharing a bit of time, sharing a bit of themselves for the benefit of one another. The benefits of these visits run both ways, the residents getting the opportunity to tell the students who and what they used to be, and the students getting the opportunity to tell the residents who and what they want to be. Somewhere in the middle, they both talk of who and what they are.

A common question the students have for the residents is, “What advice do you have for someone my age?” The common response from the residents, most of whom are wheelchair bound, is, “Do things while you are able.” Except for Sandra, she says, “Never get married.”

One of the residents, who was about to turn 90, disagreed with Sandra, saying, “My husband was a hunk, we had a lot of good times.” One of the students asked her what she planned on doing for her 90th birthday? She shrugged and matter-of-factly said, “Crawl out my window and go have a beer.”

We all have a variety of biases that shade the way we see the world and the people we share this world with. These interactions between young and old have seemed to lift some of those shades and allow both sides to see each other in a better light.

“One night while I was out a ridin’

The graveyard shift midnight ‘til dawn

The moon was bright as a readin’ light

For a letter from an old friend back home”