creating a divine society

"i'm here because of you," and a shiver runs up my back.

our Starlight Wonderkids group stepped out into the white snowy Sunday to volunteer at a seniors residence in Montreal. just like that. go and do it. it was part of an Art of Living course, DSN, a sanskrit term meaning creating a divine society. i felt a bit sceptical, having been on the other side of all this, at Santropol Roulant and everyday working with volunteers and seniors, co-ordinating people, their expectations, feelings, schedules...

the first place we call says no absolutely not, we don't know you, we need to screen our volunteers. so i call le manoir l'age d'or, a place i've passed many many times doing our meals-on-wheels route in the McGill ghetto. they say, yes, how wonderful, you missed the christmas party, but come anyway. we show up, there are 10 of us. they are overwhelmed thinking it would just be me, doing a friendly visit. we decide we will go in groups of two to each floor. i am assigned to the 6th floor to find a nurse named daniel. off we go for one hour.

so much happened in that one hour.

E. , so tall, skeletal, smiling. didn't know who was in the picture by her bed. was it her?

Mme B. in her striped tiger velour pyjamas, smoking a long cigarette and watching bowling. her room is comfy and pink. she has a cross on the wall, photos of her with beautiful red hair and sculpted eyebrows. never married, never a mother; instead took in her nieces and nephews in a small 3 1/2 apartment in montreal. if only more young people were like you, so nice. i say, oh they are out there, i've seen them doing exactly this for the last five years.

the woman who hears that she has visitors, and, overwhelmed and grateful, cries.

the tables downstairs reserved by, and set especially for, families visiting their relative for Christmas dinner, and the 3 that stayed empty with a parent waiting, alone. they paid for the meal, the table was set and they didn't show. is that possible? my heart hurts. such lonliness.

then i see the nurse. male, smiling, familiar. are you daniel? we look at each other, we know each other.

he says, "I volunteered at Santropol Roulant."

oh yes, i TOTALLY remember. he was so great, sincere, present. he had left to go back to school. "I've been here for two years." i can tell they love him here, "I'm going back to do my masters in nursing. "

and now i am here, in his place, volunteering, knowing perhaps, just a little bit, how he must have felt. full & whole.

it comes full circle.