The place was a lot nicer than I expected when my mom and I
walked into the Sunrise Assisted Living Facility in Southern California to
sign in at the front desk. The staff seemed refreshingly nice too…at least to a
guy like me that’s become increasingly hardened by over 10 years living amidst
the hustle-and-bustle of the east coast.
We were there to see my mom’s 91 year-old first cousin
Mildred (my first cousin once removed) who’s been staying in the senior
facility since falling in her Alhambra, California home last July. My mother
only lives about 40 miles west of there near Santa Barbara, CA, but at 84 and with
advancing macular degeneration, it’s increasingly tough for her to navigate her
light blue 2004 Grand Marquis battleship on the Southern California roads. In light of that she’d only made one harrowing trip by herself, and my
visit from Washington, DC provided the perfect opportunity for her to be chauffeured to
her second visit.
At 53, I’m no virgin to these types of senior housing. Over
the years I’ve visited a host of relatives staying in homes, and for very
short while I even made a bit of a habit of playing the guitar or piano at a
couple of such facilities in Eastern North Dakota and Western Minnesota. Regardless of which
one I visited, I usually left feeling like a rock star, but then again, I guess the entertainment bar was pretty low.
Compared to some I've seen, this was pretty nice. As we rounded the corner to
greet my cousin, I was struck by the pleasant look on several resident’s faces
as they sat napping and reading around the fireplace. They were seated on what
at least appeared to be fairly comfortable couches arranged in a U-shape around
the hearth, and I remember thinking it might have been the first such place
where I’d witnessed such a scene.
Mildred, now confined to a wheelchair after breaking her
left leg when falling again 3 weeks ago while trying to move a chair on her
patio (she has her own assisted living apartment), gave us an enthusiastic
greeting when she spotted us. She looked remarkably well for 91 (to be
honest…no worse than me) and she asked us if we wanted to move over to the
recreation area to visit a bit. The den-like area, which included the
aforementioned fireplace, sat just between the large dining area and the
outdoor courtyard. We settled in at a table by the windowed double-door that
gave way to the tree-covered patio, and after I grabbed coffee for the group (
it was free) from table adjacent to where we sat, we immediately began to chat
about my cousin’s assisted living digs.
Mildred always had a great disposition, and she talked
excitedly about the facility and pulled out a paper that listed all the
“activities” going on in the place. I asked her if she participates in any of
them, and she noted that she goes to most of the exercise classes and usually
does the Thai Chi. I’m not making this up…and she even demonstrated some Thai
Chi moves she’d learned to improve hearing and laughed as she slowly tugged
down and outward on her earlobes. I asked her if it working, and she leaned
forward and said “what?”
It wasn’t long at all before the conversation shifted to a
nostalgic waxing of their childhood time growing up on the Red River farm in
eastern North Dakota. They laughed as they reminisced about riding shovels down
the riverbank in the winter, or building icehouses in the snow that piled along
the riverbank. I asked if anyone ever worried that the caves they carved out of
the snow would ever collapse…and they simultaneously said “no…nobody ever
worried about us.” They talked about riding horses bareback to get the mail
from the mailbox which was a half mile to the west down the dirt road, and
flagging down the steam engine at the depot in Wolverton, MN. They even talked
about sneaking through the woods in hopes of getting a glimpse of neighbor
Jimmy Alm skinny dipping in the riverside gravel pit.
What’s the point of all this? Well, if you know you can use
the comment section to tell me…but I think it could be this. When I was a kid
we’d gather every Christmas Eve at my Aunt Nannie and Selma’s (they were my
grandpa’s sisters) at the top of Mount Angelus drive in Highland Park,
California. When we sat down for a traditional Swedish dinner in their
modest dining room, the group consisted of my aunts and hosts Nannie and Selma,
Mildred and her husband Bob and their daughter (my second cousin) Pam, my cousin
Alice and her husband Bill, my aunt Lucile and her boyfriend Tom, my mom and
dad and me. It was always a festive time…and at least for me as a young boy…it
seemed to me that group would be around forever.
Now…of that core group of 12, the only ones left are Mildred
(91), my mother (84) and me (I look like I’m 39). That’s not sad…it’s just the
way it works. Unless something changes dramatically, the script won’t likely
end the same, but it will eventually end. So…when you look around at your loved
ones and friends, don’t take them for granted. Try to avoid the petty crap that
leads to fights and bad blood and think about the fact that those people around
us won’t always be here. Neither will we…so as my boyhood pastor Don Shelby
used to say, “life is a gift…and you better make it count for something.
Girl Crush
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