Dear Diary: How this retired teacher is staying connected with her dad

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In thisinstalment of our series, Dear Diary: In a Time of COVID-19,Karen Pollock tells us about learning the ukulele and how it's helping her stay connected with her father. This submission has been edited for clarity and length.

Last year I purchased a baritone ukulele. I wanted to learn my dad's favourite songs so that I could play and sing them to him.

Dad is 96-years old and has Alzheimer's, but has always loved music. He used to sing in harmony to his favourite songs. Now the disease has taken away his voicebut he still enjoys hearing the music.

Until the pandemic hit, I was involved in several music groups with flute, cello and voice, and never got around to learning the ukulele.

But when my groups came to a halt, and I had the opportunity to visit dad over Skype at his nursing home, I was motivated to learn the chords to his favourite songs.

The first time I played and sang for him, the aide wiped tears from dad's eyes, so I knew that I was reaching him. I'm so glad that I had this opportunity to share the music with him.

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