Music Brings Memory

The aide who answered the phone in the Alzheimer's unit shouted, "Woody, you've got a phone call!" I heard the clattering as he grasped the handset, followed by his whistle, a nervous habit he acquired over the past few years. "It's Mary Ellen, your daughter," I said. Then I hummed him a note, as if I were giving him a cue from the pitch pipe--and began to sing Henry Mancini's "Moon River." By the second note, he was...read the rest of the story.