I recently came across a heartwarming AARP video. The subject? A Holocaust survivor who founded a band at the age of 90.

Saul Dreier, who is 99, discovered the power of music while he was in the concentration camps in Europe. He didn’t have food, but he had music, he said in this 4-minute-20-second cinematic gem. He played spoons as accompaniment for a couple of singers.

“And when I was playing, singing, I felt very good,” the 99-year-old recalled. “Yeah, I forgot all my troubles.

Flash forward many decades later — after the camps were liberated, after he moved to the United States, after he married and had four children, and when the drums were a distant memory. At the age of 90, he learned of a fellow Holocaust survivor and musician who died. He told his wife he was putting together a Holocaust Survivor Band. Her response? You’re nuts. His clergy had the same response.

“When two people told me ‘crazy,’ Monday morning I went with a blank check and bought a set of drums,” he said with a hint of defiance.

Since then, his band, which plays traditional Jewish music and now is composed of Dreier and relatives of survivors, has played around the world including a Chanukah party at the White House.

The video is a reminder to have joy. It is not easy in a world that can seem so cruel and so unfair. Just ask Dreier how harsh the world can be.

Closer to home, consider what your industry is up against:

  • A new Medicaid rule that also may serve to reduce critical access to home- and community-based services.

Next week McKnight’s is celebrating 60 women at its annual Women of Distinction ceremony in Chicago. These women set themselves apart in the field of long-term care — home care, senior living and nursing homes — with their hard work, integrity and ingenuity. There is certain to be a lot of laughing, whooping and hollering.

And dare I say, joy. Just what the doctor ordered.

Liza Berger is editor of McKnight’s Home Care. Email her at [email protected].