We went to see a

Nursing home for my mother.

Lyngblomsten.

Heather flower,

In Norwegian.

It had all the

Sad trappings

I would expect of a

Nursing home:

Metal hand rails attached to seemingly everything;

Laminate fake-wood signs warning against

Accidentally letting a resident out of the building;

And of course,

The residents themselves.

Men and women,

Shrunken,

Shaking,

With quaky, high voices,

And half a tennis ball stuck onto the bottom of each leg of their walkers.

But you know,

I can make a decision to

Shift my gaze.

I can look

Instead

At the aquarium,

With its bubbling, clean,

Cool-looking water,

Emerald seaweed swaying,

And impervious cyan- and canary-striped flounder

Turning calmly at the corners,

And eternally swimming

Back the

Other way.

There’s the aviary in the corner of the lounge

With warm, golden lights

Bathing the small,

Champagne sparrows with black speckles,

Their wings tiny, beating triangles, as they

Hop from perch to perch

And back

Again.

Or the bright eyes of

Some of

The residents as they

Turn their heads

And look at you

Sideways,

Sliding their walkers slowly down the sallow white tiled hallway.

Some of them will

Smile

In that way of

People

Who have learned that

Nothing’s truly more important than

A small smile

In a day.