assistedlivingconcerns

I just read a wonderful book called The Notebook. It tells a love story that begins in a small town in North Carolina where two teenagers meet at a carnival. The boy is a local from a working-class family. The girl, the only child of a rich one, is spending the summer there on vacation. One day, the boy takes his new-found friend to see an abandoned mansion that was built in the plantation days. He vows to buy it one day, and restore it, so that the two of them can spend the rest of their lives together there. They enter the place and make love.
The following day, the girl leaves with her family to return home. The boy writes to her every day for a year, but he never hears from her. WWII breaks out and he joins the service, while the girl goes to college, majoring in art. When the boy returns home he receives an inheritance from his past employer, enabling him to restore the old mansion. Believing in miracles, he never gives up on the idea that his lost love will return, holding on to his dream with the ghost of her. He has a painting she gave him mounted over the fireplace, which helps him keep his thoughts of her alive.
Meanwhile, back in the big city, his love has become engaged to a successful lawyer. The wedding, three weeks off, promises to be the main social event of the year. By accident, she comes across an article in the paper about the wonderful restoration of an old plantation by the man she never stopped loving. She is torn apart about what to do. Her fiancé is tied up with a big trial, enabling her to cook up an excuse to get away for a few days to look for antiques out in the countryside.
She is at a loss to understand her conduct, but presses on, driving to his place to find him sitting on the porch. He is thrilled to see her. She reveals her marriage plans, which dashes his renewed hopes. They have supper together, where she learns that he had written her hundreds of letters. She realizes that her mother, who felt he was not good enough for her, must have intercepted the missives.
After dinner, she readies to leave, but agrees to return tomorrow because he promises to show her a secret place. She goes to town and checks in at a motel. Next day, they take a canoe trip up the river to a hidden lake populated by swans and geese who come there every year. They get caught in a storm, rush back to the house where they put on fresh clothes, his. They sit in front of the fireplace, under her painting, to dry out. They make love and spend the night together.
The next day, her mother arrives to warn them that the fiance is in town looking for her. She gives her daughter all the letters she had confiscated and apologizes, then leaves. En route to meet her fiancé, she stops and reads the letters. In the last scene of the story, the boy is now an old man confined to a nursing home. Each morning he visits a patient and reads to her from a notebook. The patient is his wife of 50 years who no longer knows who he is, but he believes that by continuing to read that story to her, some day she will remember. One day after he becomes deathly ill, he makes his way to her room, kisses her, which causes her to remember him and the swans. The next morning they are found together, dead, holding hands.

There are three important events in our lives: where we’ve been, where we are and where we wind up. The second one is called reality; the other two are what we decide to make of them. Looking back, we have total control over recalling what pleases us as well as the power to weed out what we wish to forget or deny. Concocting a scenario that enables us bring up visions of comfort and kindness, the time we learned about love and friendship. Those days when we were content with less and appreciated our lot. Fruits tasted better, the air was cleaner and we can still smell Momma’s cooking.
Like we envision our yesteryears, we, each, create a personal idea of what our after life will be like. In Genesis we are told Moses went there. In Exodus it’s describe as a gate. Some refer to those Gates as being pearly where you meet the keeper who decides whether or not you enter, so be good for goodness’ sake.
In our present state of life, we are the product of choices, some ours, some those of others. The extent of our share of blessings greatly vary as does the pain and regrets. There’s no going back so we find contentment and reassurance in those castles in the sky that we’ve built in our imagination about the good ole days and heaven.
Remember the movie Gigi where Maurice Chevalier sang, “Thank God I’m Not Young Anymore?” In our recollections of the good ole days the sweet days of youth and love convince us in our imagination that it was the best of times. We recall how politicians really cared about the electorate, how bankers bent over backwards to grant loans to make our dreams come true and the neighbors always minded their own business. It was time of paradise on earth. Yes, they were truly the good ole days.
Like the cowboy sitting on the bull in the pen at the rodeo who knows he will definitely be tossed sooner or later once they burst out of the gates, we too are riding the bull of life hanging on to the last breath until that fateful moment when we get sent into the arms of that gate keeper above, believing with all our heart that the loving God will accept us into the promised land, despite our faults. So, remember, hang on to those personal visions of the past and the future. It’s your choice, so make the best of it.

Among the myriad of features exhibited by humans, is its nature to be territorial. This propensity is manifested on many levels, even in the course of dining. Consider the facility that houses the aged where a family of people who judge themselves to be friendly, gracious, civil beings gather at mealtimes to dine together. One might guess that the main topic of discussion would be the menu. After the denizens are seated, servers take their orders and soon everyone is engaged in the fine art of ingesting food. The din of conversations mixed with laughter engulfs the ambience. All is well in paradise, until….
A new resident appears at the doorway, hoping to see some one she knows, or, if not that, maybe a gesture from a diner welcoming her come join them. When none of that happens, the new kid on the block gingerly enters the dining area looking for an empty seat where she hopes to meet some of the regulars. Finally, she spots a vacant chair and makes a move to occupy it. Instead of a welcome, she is accosted by a stringent cry that warns not to sit there because that space belongs to so and so.
The freshman resident had been clearly advised by the saleslady as well as by other members of the staff that “open seating” is the reigning policy of the institution. Actually, the policy is more like, “not in my neighborhood.” Each new resident undergoes something along the line of this experience when first entering the dining room. The level of sensitivity varies with each human, which is revealed in such cases as this. Some never recover from the very rude introduction afforded them when first entering the restaurant.
Eventually, most find a niche and settle in, where, overtime, come to regard a specific seat as “theirs.” And the show goes on and on. Then there are those who find a small table for two where they are able to sit by themselves to be free of the abuse they initially experienced. For those that are extremely territorial, if they arrive and find some one in “their” seat they either flip and make a scene or assault the occupant with a demand that they vacate the seat immediately, noting that they have been sitting there forever.
Occasionally, management will lecture the diners on the necessity of respecting the “open seating” policy, which once again falls on deaf ears and is met by frosty looks. Wars have been fought over territorial matters. The courts are often used to settle such disputes. But at a gathering of family members around the table, the pecking order reigns. Some well meaning sole suggested that the facility employ a maitre’ d of sorts to bring the diners to a suitable place. Getting management to hire an additional staff member is akin to asking the U.S. to return California to Mexico. Asking for budget changes is the biggest no-no, since it always involves taking something away from something else.
The long and short of it is to accept reality that man is basically a territorial animal!

DINING AT A SENIOR FACILITY
Among the myriad of features exhibited by humans, is its nature to be territorial. This propensity is manifested on many levels, even in the course of dining. Consider the facility that houses the aged where a family of people who judge themselves to be friendly, gracious, civil beings gather at mealtimes to dine together. One might guess that the main topic of discussion would be the menu. After the denizens are seated, servers take their orders and soon everyone is engaged in the fine art of ingesting food. The din of conversations mixed with laughter engulfs the ambience. All is well in paradise, until….
A new resident appears at the doorway, hoping to see some one she knows, or, if not that, maybe a gesture from a diner welcoming her come join them. When none of that happens, the new kid on the block gingerly enters the dining area looking for an empty seat where she hopes to meet some of the regulars. Finally, she spots a vacant chair and makes a move to occupy it. Instead of a welcome, she is accosted by a stringent cry that warns not to sit there because that space belongs to so and so.
The freshman resident had been clearly advised by the saleslady as well as by other members of the staff that “open seating” is the reigning policy of the institution. Actually, the policy is more like, “not in my neighborhood.” Each new resident undergoes something along the line of this experience when first entering the dining room. The level of sensitivity varies with each human, which is revealed in such cases as this. Some never recover from the very rude introduction afforded them when first entering the restaurant.
Eventually, most find a niche and settle in, where, overtime, come to regard a specific seat as “theirs.” And the show goes on and on. Then there are those who find a small table for two where they are able to sit by themselves to be free of the abuse they initially experienced. For those that are extremely territorial, if they arrive and find some one in “their” seat they either flip and make a scene or assault the occupant with a demand that they vacate the seat immediately, noting that they have been sitting there forever.
Occasionally, management will lecture the diners on the necessity of respecting the “open seating” policy, which once again falls on deaf ears and is met by frosty looks. Wars have been fought over territorial matters. The courts are often used to settle such disputes. But at a gathering of family members around the table, the pecking order reigns. Some well meaning sole suggested that the facility employ a maitre’ d of sorts to bring the diners to a suitable place. Getting management to hire an additional staff member is akin to asking the U.S. to return California to Mexico. Asking for budget changes is the biggest no-no, since it always involves taking something away from something else.
The long and short of it is to accept reality that man is basically a territorial animal!