ElleSpeak

Have you heard the saying that a friend is someone who knows your song and sings it back to you when you’ve forgotten it? I call that friend a song keeper. Jim Conkle was a song writer, a singer of songs, and he was a song keeper.

The first time I met Jim was in my office when he came in to sign the annual lease for his apartment at Crestwood. He had just returned home from the hospital to recuperate from another of the many strokes he would suffer and that would eventually take his life.

I had just accepted the position of live in resident manager in an apartment building of 108 senior residents and wasn’t feeling overly confident about anything. My long-time marriage had just ended and I had lost my song over those many years. I was trying to find it again but I thought it might be lost forever.

Within a very short time our conversation that day turned from business to nature, something we both loved dearly, and during that conversation Jim heard a snippet of my song and he gave it back to me. As our friendship grew he celebrated with me each time I found another piece of my song.

He told me once that after the strokes began happening to him he never felt whole again; because each stroke left him with another deficit. When I sat and talked with him I saw the deficits of his body, but what I also saw was a whole spirit, someone who knew what was truly important in life and tried to live it.

Jim was a songkeeper for anyone he had the opportunity to spend a little time with. If they had forgotten their song, he could find a piece of it and sing it back to them and they would be grateful. He shared the language of the heart with most people he met and they saw a reflection of their better selves in him.

I think this was Jim’s true work in life, his song. Thank you Jim for living your song and for helping me to remember mine. You are a dear friend.

I wonder what will the world be like when we all hear our song in the hearts of others and see our better selves reflected in everyone we meet?