Volunteers for Friends of the Los Alamos Senior Centers Nancy Calkins, left, and Donnay Hayes, at an Ice Cream Social April 4 at the Betty Ehart Senior Center. Courtesy photo
Los Alamos High School student volunteers celebrating the organizations they volunteer for and what they enjoy about their participation. Courtesy photo
By DAVID IZRAELEVITZ
Los Alamos
There is a mystical tradition in Judaism that the soul partially leaves the body during sleep to ascend and interact with the divine, hence our rejuvenation and special insights we sometimes experience during slumber. Accordingly, there is a traditional prayer one recites upon waking, where we thank that divine spirit for returning our soul to us. We are recreated each morning as a new person, with the potential of new insights and energy to apply to this new day. But what are we supposed to do with this daily kabbalistic energy boost? What makes each of us get up in the morning?
The above is one of those questions that are especially annoying if you have children to get ready for school, or a job that requires an early start. But for those of us who are retired and have already launched our children, the question of the remaining purpose of our lives, the impetus for getting up and doing things every day, is a fundamental and existential query. If there isn’t a reason to get up each morning, it seems much more likely that sooner than we expect, we won’t have to ask that question anymore. How many people do we know who, without a remaining purpose, see their health problems accumulate and their decline accelerate?
On the other hand, I know so many people in our community whose initial purpose for living in Los Alamos has passed, and yet have found new activities to motivate them, ways to apply this restored and renovated soul that we are given each morning. Some decide that they can return to research at LANL without the pesky requirement of timesheet accounting, while others check off their travel bucket list. I am especially impressed by those older folks who came to Los Alamos to assist in raising their grandchildren, and now that those kids are grown and gone (doesn’t it happen much too quickly?), have decided to stay in Los Alamos and make an impact in other ways. I won’t embarrass them by listing the names of those grannies and grampies who volunteer at the Senior Centers, are the energy and leadership behind several local nonprofits, serve as docents and goodwill ambassadors around town, or myriad other activities. How those younger sports coaches, PTO leaders, and Lunch Buddies share their time volunteering while also holding the above-referenced job and/or raising a family is an object of wonder and Herculean achievement that makes me tired just thinking about it.
One of my post-retirement passions has been volunteering with the Los Alamos Community Foundation, so it was especially meaningful to me when LACF and LARSO organized an Ice Cream Social last April 4th at the Betty Ehart Senior Center. Liz Martineau, the Executive Director of LACF, reported a standing-room-only celebration of all those volunteers “who serve on boards, fill food boxes, run education programs, help neighbors, enrich life with music and so much more.” Coincidentally, April was National Volunteer Month, so the ice cream was very timely, as if there was ever a time when it wouldn’t be! Not quite during Volunteer Month, but close, LACF collaborated with the Los Alamos Schools Credit Union and hosted another ice cream social in early May for the wonderful student volunteers at Los Alamos High School. They tutor their peers, collect aluminum for recycling, raise funds for local nonprofits, and participate in many other activities supported by our local service organizations.
If you are one of those who have checked off their bucket lists and are wondering what to do now or are wondering who you can help make breakfast for now that your hungry teenage grandchild is off to college, consider joining those who have found ways to keep healthy, busy, and happy by sharing knowledge, energy, and skills.
Check out more than 80 opportunities to share your talent at VolunteerLosAlamos.org, and join over 400 other registered volunteers there. The volunteer opportunities range from being a dining host at our senior centers to helping maintain our community pollinator garden, to trail maintenance under the supervision of our county Open Space Specialist.
Don’t worry if you feel tired at the end of the day. You will have a better night’s sleep and mystical dreams are sure to come!