Please don’t paint my finger nails when I am old.  please don’t send me to the beauty shop either. I want my hair to grow long and gray. I want my hair to be brushed and then braided.    I don’t want to be pushed in my wheelchair into a group of other elders where plastic beach balls are launched towards my head and I have to bat it away.

instead, wheel me into a room that has lovely bookshelves stacked with classics bound in leather. make sure there is a view to a field with mountains and trees.  then shut the door and sit with me in quiet, stillness.

let me have the time to wander back into my mind, to times that were still by the lake, times where I am in joy with my family.  don’t rob me of this by keeping me in a group, or in front of a large tv screen where the noise and superficial actions distract from what is really going on in life.