For anyone who has had experience with it firsthand, Alzheimer’s is an unusually cruel disease. It is a degenerative disorder which is one of the leading causes of dementia, with a wide range of symptoms including short-term memory loss, declining motivation, disorientation, trouble speaking and trouble recognizing loved ones.
While there is no cure for it as of yet, there’s also no telling which memories will go or in what order—more specifically, musical ties to memory seem to be harder to break than other ones. With that in mind, we bring you this beautiful video between a son and his mother.
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Source: YouTube Screenshot
The video was posted on YouTube by Brian Ridings and features he and his 88-year-old mother singing guitar duets together. Though his mom lives in an assisted living home and sometimes has difficulty communicating or remembering exactly what’s going on, Ridings noticed that her eyes always lit back up again when they sang or performed music together. With that in mind, he decided to capture it on video for posterity.
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Source: YouTube Screenshot
Though the story is touching enough on its own, it doesn’t hurt that both of them have beautiful voices that harmonize together perfectly. Though his mom stumbles over a few words here and there, her son helps reorient her with his own singing and a smiling face. As he wrote in the video’s description: “Most days I miss [my mom], but she always comes back to me when we sing.”
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Source: YouTube Screenshot
This story tugs at the heartstrings for a number of reasons. For one, the relationship these two have is as warm and friendly as anyone could hope to have with their parents in old age. For another, it’s a testament to the power of music to bring us together and keep the life of the mind active and alive. On a more bittersweet note, the video is a reminder to cherish the precious time we have with our parents and loved ones while we can.
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Source: Brian Ridings
