I miss my people. The people I served with in the trenches and the people we served while in them. Talk about a group that is not seen. Not really. I worked at a senior living facility and during covid my people were locked down. Quickly and with no regret.
They were my elite elderly. I found them amazing in spirit, in foundation and in work. Their work was different now, but they always found themselves useful by helping each other and I got to be a part of them. I was their teacher, their advocate, their director and their cheerleader. Working with them to keep them strong and well with encouragement and classes. Helping them by planning events that they could go to and participate in. Participation being a key word. My people didn’t come here to be spectators. They came to stay active and live the life they wanted under just a little watchful eye.
My place, my office, my studio was in the independent building. We had the assisted living people tagged by another building with many other living situations on the campus – what brought them there was a need. As a couple one could care for the other – usually with one losing some type of capacity – and move to a place with meals, for socialization and activities. It was a wonderful place to find so you wouldn’t feel so alone in your strength in caring for your loved one.
People don’t exactly wish to come to a place like this. And the only ones who will be happy doing so will be the ones who come “on purpose” without coercion. And only for the sake too ease the burden of care. Being talked into something creates mistrust and usually for good reason. To be a burden to anyone, especially family, is on the minds of all my people. And in American it is on the minds of everyone. Permission is in the air to send people off to a different place for their own good.
It can be hard at times.
To be Independent is where one wants to start until you know they can’t be any longer and then you shuffle to the next building.
I basically, manned the independent building. And I helped everywhere I could until they wouldn’t let me, and I was forced to take a stand. I had to leave them at a half-mast of themselves. Their former selves – the ones who were amazed at how capable they were. Knowing that they could do things made them happy and they loved to be pushed by me.
I’ll never forget Jim Talbot telling his son Gerry, “That’s her, she’s the one who is trying to kill me . . . but I like it.”
I knew how to push them, and I knew how to watch. I watched them like a hawk without them even knowing it. I saw them. I heard them. I understood them. It is said you come to love the people you serve and for me that is truly how it was.
The restart, the coming back to life was hard. So hard, especially since the starting point was so far from where we left off; but also, far from where they began when I came. I have a cheerful countenance and it carried me along with them to keep going, to begin again. To move, breathe and create a routine even if the routine made you feel like you were a child again. We all were. Picking ourselves up. Learning how to lift ourselves first so we can be useful again.
It was not easy for them. I knew it because I could see it. And I made sure everyone had a chance to start again even if I had to teach multiple classes of the same thing because they limited our numbers for a class. No one would be left out and various new classes were added and designed to do just that. Some couldn’t do 30 minutes anymore. You had to have the 10 – 15 – minute classes. And you had to help people learn how to breathe again. To come out of that fetal humped back position to opened chests to stand tall again even if it was in their chairs. The art of posture and breathing was our foundational beginning with Tai Chi movements and some Yoga. Just to get moving and feel the motions. There is so much you can do in a chair. And the stronger ones use the chair to stand by so they can learn how to catch themselves again.
Being reliant is a scary thing and until you are there in some form you will never know just how scary that is. My elite elderly knew what grief was, they knew what loss was. You don’t get to be their age and not have had “to many” losses. They had done it before and were going to do it again. And so was I.
I call myself being in the “middle zone”. I have aging parents and I have amazing grandchildren and if you are anything like me, I know you want to be the strength they need. A commitment to yourself to rise and become stronger than you’ve ever been, is my call. It is my hope to join in that positive corner of the internet to say and show you how you can do it. Lift yourself Up and join me at To Lift Up. One by one we can then lift each other up!
