We asked our board to share their personal stories about our Intergenerational Program. Here is Board Director, Noelle Guest’s contribution:
When I think of Cathedral Park Performing Arts Collective’s Intergenerational Program, I think of my grandmother, Pearl. She was such a big part of my childhood and youth, serving, at times, as the second parent we did not have. She sang us to sleep whenever we stayed with her, which was often. She sat at the foot of the double bed, tucked-in two sisters in polyester nightgowns, and sang nursery rhymes and hymns til we drifted away. Of the millions of words she probably spoke to me over those years, it is the songs, the sound of her warm voice, and the simplicity of the joy she felt, that I cling to. It brought us together in a way the words did not. It was a shared energy and a common, bonding language. It was a big part of her system of Love.
I want that for my own child now and wonder where he will get it. He does not have the good fortune I did, having actively involved and present grandparents. How and where will he learn about the contribution and depth of older people and previous generations? Where will he get this essential connection?
As his parent, I will have to seek out what he needs and place it in his life. I will have to find people of diversity for him to meet and learn from. So I am thankful for programs like this one, programs that will help me teach him, reach him, and show him about the diversity of human experience and the value to be found in difference.
When I was very little, I thought my grandmother was too old to know anything. I thought she was too old to know the real world. But as an older child, old enough to grasp time and history, I realized how much she’d already seen, how much time she’d already waded through, and saw her differently from that day forward. She became a woman who would always know more than I, always have seen and done far more than I could fathom. A woman with a past, and secrets and stories, with a foothold in history.
It is my hope that all children can see elders in our community this way.
Programs like this make that possible.
Learn more about the Intergenerational Program: HERE