MANKATO, Minn. — College is a time to make lifelong friends.
Mankato State senior Ashley Schmitz didn't expect one of those friends would be four times her age.
It was at Monarch Meadows, a senior living facility, where 21-year-old on-call staffer Ashley would meet 86-year-old resident Karen Madsen - who sort of tells it like it is.
"I think I have an artistic personality, but no talent," Karen says. "While I was in the nursing home for eight months, I decided to get to know people that annoyed me or angered me. Like one lady said, 'you are the most demanding person I ever met, I thought 'well you should talk.'"
But, something drew Ashley and Karen closer - a mutual love for writing.
Karen has kept journals of her life since she was 12 years old. All of them - mostly - still sit on her shelf.
"I burned a journal when I got dumped by a guy," Karen says. "I tore out every page slowly and burned it in the old kitchen stove."
"Very 12-year-old thing to do," Ashley laughs.
"No, I was nineteen then," Karen says, joining in on the laughter.
But macular degeneration has left Karen blind, unable to read her journals and unable to write new ones.
"After a shift I would come in and I'd ask her what year she wanted to remember from," Ashley says. "We will read a small snippet from a date decades ago and she will tell me the story and I can see the clarity in her eyes and that moment and that memory. You get to learn these very intimate and beautiful moments about someone. And I think it's incredible."
Now, during a pandemic that threatens our elders most, their relationship has been their lifeboat.
"How do I manage to have joy when this is not a joyful time for us?" Karen says. "It makes me weepy and sad and joyful and thankful and peaceful when it's not always easily obtainable."
As Ashley selects one of the poems she's written for Karen, it's in these moments you see that time is relative ... but love is timeless.
"I'm hoping at the end of all this we recognize what's really important, and that we keep remembering that, even when things settle down and pick back up," Ashley says.
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