No one enters community residential care without a cause usually for health reasons but occasionally there is a need for some type of supervisory care when there is no one left in the family to provide it; therefore there needs to be an address change. There are obviously different degrees of reluctance to re-locate, some few as they say go kicking and screaming but most in a normal mental state realize the necessity and accept the life change as inevitable. On Saturdays I see a friend who is in residential care who has made the best of what to some might be a challenging situation. Her philosophy aligns with the saying, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
Her living accommodations are adequate and most pleasant made even more so by a roommate who shares common interests. She is always excited to see me and never fails to welcome me with a happy disposition. She is a great grandmother and once I point out the photograph of a child on the wall near her chair, she can hardly contain her joy. The little girl was a “miracle” baby and the Granny holds out one cupped hand to show the listener just how small the child was at birth, a preemie. Recently she informed me that she and been invited to the child’s birthday party, an occasion she recounts excitedly. If one has to have a reason to live, this is it for her.
When visiting, she wanted to tell me of a trip that she had recently. It was, to her, like going to far-away places but actually only to visit nearby Little Rock, Rowland and Fairmont. Each of the towns had been a part of her life. A friend picked her up and the tour began visiting places where she had gone to school as a child, where the family had once lived and the home she most recently occupied. The tour, as she called it, took only a few hours but to her it will fill the rest of her life with fond memories thanks to a caring friend. And to top it off, the couple had lunch in downtown Rowland, a memorable experience for her.
And apart from memories of her family, she brightens up when she tells about her days when she worked at a nearby carpet manufacturing plant. To hear her tell it, the job was one made Above. There was nothing that she recalls that could have been improved: the job itself, her co-workers and the best “boss” man anywhere. She knows the exact time of working there, the years, months, and weeks even to the days she was on the payroll. Because of illness in her immediate family, she had to leave to take care of a sister who was alone, an act of love. Memories remain.
To a large extent, what you bring to such a facility in terms of health and most importantly, attitude will be the factors that largely determine how successful this life transition will be.
Depending on health and longevity, ready or not, another chapter in your life might bring unanticipated changes: a new home but with good friends, well prepared meals, activities, health care monitoring and never being alone. Home is where the heart is! Be glad there are such places available locally.
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Bill Lee
PO Box 128
Hamer, SC 29547