Our first experiences at Gallagher Mansion were difficult ones. We faced a general mistrust from the residents, and found it very difficult to gauge interest in reading. In fact, it was very difficult to gauge interest in any type of activity. Each week, our meetings grew smaller and shorter. One week we arrived at Gallagher Mansion to find our meeting room empty.
Luckily, Flora was determined to take advantage of the reading group that we had proposed. She arrived at one of our meetings, where she found us desperate for a successful approach to our project. Immediately she thanked us for taking time to come to Gallagher each week, and promised to meet with us and to read with us, even if she was the only resident. Towards the end of the meeting, Rosa arrived, and the six of us established a Gallagher Mansion reading group that would read Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist together. There was a large generation gap between our group of students and the two older women. While they certainly were open to working with us, there was a certain level of discomfort present. Reading, however, was to help us eradicate this discomfort and to bridge the generational gap.
At each subsequent meeting at Gallagher, Flora and Rosa were present and ready to read. They began to open up about their love of reading, and the reasons for which they found it so important. Flora believed that reading was a way to travel to places and times that you will never get to experience yourself. She also believed that unless you continue to read throughout your life, you lose your ability to learn about the world. Rosa, in contrast, had a great love of literature, and was very well educated regarding poetry and novels. As she opened up about her love for literature, we were all able to relate to much of what she said, and she could therefore relate better to us.
Our mutual love of literature allowed our relationship to broaden and to extend beyond discussions of books. Each woman has had many life experiences, and began to feel comfortable sharing them with us. In sharing their life experiences, they were able to teach us lessons about life that can only be taught by one who has lived much longer than another.
While our eventual reading and discussions of The Alchemist certainly provided us with literary insights into how reading groups of different ages read differently, we learned a broader lesson in our time at Gallagher. Literature, while sometimes interpreted differently by different people, is a universal sharing of ideas that can help to bring together even the most diverse demographic groups.