Valentine’s Day
Dear Editor: “In Sitka, even the ground is friendly,” said Dale DeArmond in her kind, quiet voice. We were walking back from Totem Park on the soft dirt trail along Crescent Harbor in the early 1990s. She and her husband, the noted historian Robert A. DeArmond, had recently moved from Juneau to the Sitka Pioneers Home, where they continued their creative, thoughtful lives for many years. A visit with the DeArmonds on the ground floor was always a highlight in my visits to Sitka. An inspiration.
This morning I woke up early and sang “Oh! What a Beautiful Morning” on my way to get my first cup of coffee. I wasn’t going to get a Valentine’s card from my late husband, Bill. But later I might dig out some silly ones, recycled from the past. Fifty-six years is a long time (sometimes a very long time). In recent years we tended to fish through a stack of private, old cards for the one that seemed especially appropriate for the day. No, we did not keep them all, but just a choice few to draw on, in case we forgot.
Today I counted on reading a few more segments of Marcel LaPerriere’s book, “Just Another Adventure: Living with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS),” which is available at Old Harbor Books. This amazing, new book has been a great source of inspiration the last couple of weeks. I am not hurrying through to finish, because I am – can you believe! – actually enjoying it. And learning about a horrible disease, ALS.But it is relatively painless learning, well-written, with a pervasive positive theme which is quite powerful.
Here is today’s line of inspiration at the end of the section “Reflection and Joy”: “Life is too full of joy to stay depressed by this terrible disease. I hate ALS, but I’m happy to say I’m still in love with life.”
Marcel and Connie LaPerriere are a source of inspiration. Also, the book is a special kind of love story. They remind me of the DeArmonds.
Thank you.
Nancy Yaw Davis, Sitka
Volunteer Recognition
Dear Editor: Pioneers Home volunteer recognition:
Please join us in honoring the excellent volunteers who come to the Sitka Pioneers Home. Each person in this diverse crowd provides support to the residents in a variety of ways. We want to thank and show appreciation to all of you. If you are part of the Folk, Russian and Celtic music groups, are one of the many piano musicians who play here, or perform your music here in other ways, please come!
Brave Heart Volunteers involved with SPH, we want to see you. Spiritual leaders at St. Peter’s by-the-Sea, Sitka Lutheran, United Methodist, and St. Gregory’s, as well as those involved in the Bible Study group from Sitka Christian Center, you are also invited.
If you: have done a presentation, led a discussion, shared videos, are involved in the SPH Gift Shop, facilitate an exercise program, bring children’s groups here, have performed here, or support the home and residents in another method of volunteerism, you are also part of the Pioneers Home Volunteer community.
We appreciate you and hope to see you during the Home Happenings Celebration on Friday, Feb. 22, at 1:30 p.m. in the Sitka Pioneers Home Main Lounge.
Questions? Contact Skye Workman 747-2103.
Skye Workman,
Recreation Therapist I,
Sitka Pioneer Home
