We lost my father a couple of years back to a fast and sudden death. This left my mother who was 74 at the time at a total loss. They had been married for 50 years and suddenly she was all alone in a large rambling home with no 1 to talk to.
Two of her three young children lived out of the location, and the 3rd remaining child lived a life of her own which oftentimes did not consist of any thoughts of her mother at all. This would not do as we watched my mother take on a slow dismal decline.
My brother and I got together and decided the greatest thing for mom would be to move her to a retirement community. Now this is not a nursing house or an assisted-living facility. It is a community where older members of our society live together in a centralized place (apartments, town homes, etc), but they are rather much independent and on their own for their day to day lives. The advantages of this sort of living are one is surrounded by persons their own age, ordinarily incorporating widespread interests of the residents.
Mom was hesitant at first, she hates change of any kind, she did not want to leave her property of the past 30 years. But after we convinced her of the possibilities of this new way of life she reluctantly allowed us to put her household on the market, pack her belongings and move her to a new location to start her new life.
The community we all chose consisted of 6 buildings, three stories each with 150 apartments in every building. She went into creating 1, which was the primary constructing and included the leasing and staff offices. She chose to be on the leading level, level three. Each constructing has a main entrance that 1 must pass through to access any of the apartments. This was developed this way to encourage the residents to interact with one yet another on an almost daily basis. The mail room is on the very first level, along with a lobby and congregation region, kitchen, small library and laundry room.There had been tables set up in the key region that usually had a puzzle or two in progress where one could just sit down and work on at their leisure. Want to play a card game, pull up a chair, we will let you in.
The staff had designed quite an extensive social calendar which consisted of coffee & doughnuts each Wednesday morning, a dine-in once a week (where food from local restaurants is brought in and tables are set up), a dine-out when a month (where residents vote where they want to go), bingo twice a week (cost being every resident should bring 1 item, food or otherwise and winning residents get to select their prizes), 1 or two special treats twice a month (might be a musician, poet, comic, etc...that comes in to entertain the residents), and when or twice a month an off-campus activity (concert, play, etc). The majority of these activities are free of charge to the residents of the buildings, (with the exception of the dine ins & outs). In addition to all this goodness the community owns two buses and residents can choose 6 days a week to visit any of the region stores, banks, etc...at no price to them.
When mom first moved into her new location she still drove but soon after a couple of strokes we decided that perhaps the roadway and her behind the wheel was not such a awesome concept. She sold her automobile and started to rely solely on the bus transportation. This put mom at yet another loss in her life as she liked to run here and there with no real agenda.
Mom produced buddies slowly, in fact, she has always created friends slowly now that i look back on it. I can count the number of buddies my mother has had in my lifetime on 1 hand. So its only fitting to say that this new way of life was going to be a challenge for her. Her initial friend was the next door neighbor, a woman 20 years her junior. She was disabled, thus her reason for becoming in the community at such a young age. They picked up a friendship virtually instantly to our wonderful surprise. Afternoons were spent playing scrabble (my moms favorite game and surprisingly her new ideal buddies also). They watched TV together and went locations on the bus together. Issues looked like they had been going very good. Each and every day when i spoke to my mother she would recite \"Bobbie this, and Bobbie that\" (her buddies name of course). But then some thing changed, whether it was my mother or Bobbie we may possibly never know. Just weeks prior to mom could not get enough of Bobbie, now she had had enough. She started saying they had absolutely nothing in common, Bobbie was so significantly younger than she, they ran out of things to talk about. I do not know what happened. They began spending much less and less time together. And then 1 day, Bobbie died.
Out of the blue my mother started talking about all these other ladies in the developing. Ladies that when she initial moved in ignored her, or possibly it was just my mother, being my mother. But these were the movers and shakers of the developing and now my mother was in with the in-crowd, so much so that i noticed she was swiftly becoming their leader. Oh, what had we produced. Mom was now spending a lot of her time outside of her 4 apartment walls. She was becoming hard to get a hold of given that she was continually socializing in 1 place or one more (others apartments, the lobby, outdoors, shopping on the bus with her new buddies) We knew in no way to call during social activities due to the fact she was the first to be signed up. She was thriving like we had never seen her before.
Then the ball dropped. The corporation that owned the complex decided to alter all the rules. They started slowly, creeping in just like a illness that eventually takes over and ravages your body until there is nothing left. They referred to as all the residents of the creating together 1 day and told them they had been planning on remodeling the building. Now this was considered a godsend as the buildings are 60+ years old and well lets just say that the upkeep for the past 59 years has been much less than stellar. The place was abuzz, the residents thrilled. And true to their word they started the remodel.
They spruced up the exterior, began painting the interior, gutted the entire downstairs and put in a fantastic lobby with a fireplace and promises of new couches and sitting areas. The major floor laundry room was dismantled and every floor got their own new separate laundry facilities. The place was beginning to take on a whole new look. This was just too superior to be true. Yet another meeting was called, the residents excited to see what was next got the surprise of a lifetime. It went some thing like this:
We will not be putting in a new kitchen region as we see no reason for your will need to have one. The library also unnecessary as we do not wish for our residents to be congregating in the lobby area any longer. This region is to be kept clear for residents to come and go. There will be no more puzzle developing, card playing or socializing at any time. Wednesday coffee and doughnuts will be no much more, as for the dine-ins and any other activity that would call for a group to be in the lobby area. We are changing the name of the complex from Crestwood to Club Crestwood. Oh, and by the way, rent for everybody will go up $100 a month beginning the first month of their new lease.
Now you can envision the uproar that this has caused. These are senior citizens, most just barely making ends meet as it is. You are raising their rent (and i have to tell you this is not for the reason that their rents had been too low cost to start with, no they were quite much in line with marketplace values). Most of these people do not drive and while they have not taken the bus away from them However, all these activities that i mentioned had been what kept these folks going. They have nothing now but to sit in their apartments and wait the rest of their lives out. And it infuriates me. My own mother is talking of moving, a fantastic majority of the residents are talking of moving. Just when my mother lastly discovered her groove immediately after all these years she is in real danger of losing it once more.
What the heck is wrong with this firm? My mother says it is a new big-shot that has taken over the corporation. Some young shining pup, who has no notion what type of damage he is causing to our older generation. I wonder how he would feel if his own mother lived in the complicated, but then again, possibly she already does.
