Location: Lakeview Nursing and Rehabilitation Centre
Date: Sunday, December 01, 2013; 2:30-4:00 pm
I was going to be attending this
project after a hiatus of a few months.
Earlier in the afternoon Alisa called to check if I could help carry a
few supplies from the parking lot.
I said sure and so arrived earlier than usual and went in the common
room. I sat down to wait for Alisa
and was checking something on my phone when I heard someone crying. I looked up to see that it was a resident
at a nearby table and she kept repeating that she wanted to go home. She sobbed and said that she did not
have any family and with my views on loneliness, it really was a tough thing to watch. One of the caregivers came and sat next
to her and said that she had them as family, though it was proving to be of
little comfort. It was good thing
for me that Alisa texted to say that she was here and I went outside to help
her. There were indeed a lot of
boxes to carry and Alisa had even recruited her friend to help out. I asked what it was that was making
this so heavy and learned that it was ceramic tiles to make coasters and plenty
of glass jars for another project – Hot Chocolate Snowmen. There was a time when I
would have asked many questions on the weird combination of those words, but
after having done this for a while, I have learned to just go with the flow.
The residents had started with the coasters last time and today was a continuation for those who wanted to
make more. The idea was to put
some glue on the tiles, followed by some designer paper and then more glue on
top. The jars were trickier. You needed two of them, the bottom
filled with hot chocolate powder and the top with marshmallows. Then using colored felt cloth; we were
to make a scarf to go between the two jars and a hat on the top. Finally, using sticky colors we were to
make eyes and nose. The two jars
were to be put together using hot glue.
If done well, it would make for an excellent seasonal present. Other volunteers arrived soon, including
Fran, who is an invaluable resource for this project because of the way she
interacts with the residents.
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| My cutting duties |
Speaking of residents, our buddy Elmer was in attendance, though he said that he had to leave soon for physical
therapy, but wanted to do sun-catchers today. What? I had never heard of these, which are basically glass
pieces that are colored via paint.
Fran said that she would work on his pieces while he went for his
treatment. I went and sat next to
another resident who introduced herself as Molly, and who proved to be quite
interesting. She was with Josie and Mary, all of whom wanted to make the snowman. I said that I would help with the hats by cutting a circular
disc on the felt cloth, followed by a hole in the center. I used one of the templates that Alisa
had made, but my center hole was still coming out as an oval. While Molly was fine with the oval
shape, Mary wanted to see more circular tops. Wow, talk about a tough crowd!
I chatted with Molly as I used
the top of the jar cap to trace and cut the cloth into circles. She was an enthusiastic talker and I
learned that she has 4 kids, 35 year old twins – a man and a woman – and two
other younger men in their 20s. She
called her 3rd oldest son the smartest of the lot since he was
married with a good family. In
fact, she said her daughter-in-law was like another daughter for her. I said if that was the case, then he
was certainly a smart one for finding such a woman. She said that on the contrary, her eldest son was divorced and
his ex-wife doesn’t want anything to do with them. As I chatted with her, I continued cutting and now I was
making perfectly circular tops, so much so that Alisa appointed me as the “cutting person”. Next, I started cutting a lot of the
scarves that were going in between the two jars and those were to be red or
green squares. Molly said that
she wanted to make 2 snowmen as presents for her daughter and daughter-in-law
and 4 coasters for her 3 sons and one son-in-law, since she did not want the boys
to get the snowmen. It certainly
seemed like an ambitious plan to get all of this finished, meaning that she was
pushing me to get what she wanted – but all in a good way while we chatted.
 |
| Molly's snowmen |
As I worked with Molly, I asked
Mary about her ‘Puerto Rico’ event
from November, since we had discussed it during the ‘What’s The Word’ session.
She said that it had been fantastic and even pulled out some pictures to
show me. In the meanwhile Molly’s two snowmen were looking great and we moved on to making the coasters. She instructed me to cut the squares
precisely and even commented that my straight lines were a bit suspicious. Oh yeah, tough crowd indeed!
I followed the procedure for the tiles and presented the results to
Molly, who rejected one of the coasters. But since we had some time, I was able
to make one more. Elmer was back
from his therapy and working with Fran on his sun-catchers, and they looked amazing. Alisa said that it was time to start
cleaning up and as I put things away, I asked her if I could borrow 3 designer
scissors for an office project later on in the week. Mary was in good voice today and policing everyone’s eating
and drinking habits. She scolded
one resident from drinking water when they shouldn’t have and even prevented
Elmer from eating a marshmallow.
I called her a “food police”,
but it was nice to see her caring about fellow residents.
I had enjoyed my time with Molly and she had done extremely well in finishing the presents for her entire
family. As I wished her goodbye,
Elmer asked tongue-in-cheek if I had made her work like a “rented mule”, in reference to our running joke. I said it was more like her doing it to
me this time! He said that he
would be moving back to his beloved New York soon and mentioned something about
being a ‘Yankees’ fan. He said that this wasn’t a good year to
be a ‘Yankees’ fan, to which I responded
that it was never a good year to be a ‘Yankees’
fan. He laughed and said that it was
always a good thing to see me and I said, “Likewise”. Just as I was about to leave, Jim came
in looking dejected since the ‘Bears’
had lost. We discussed the game
for a while and then I left. My
afternoon has started with a woman who had been crying because she said she had
no family, and had ended with Mary ensuring that her fellow residents took dietary
precautions. Perhaps the caregiver
was right. This was the only
family some of the residents had.
And while it may not be the family that they want, it may just be the family that they need.
*All the client's names have been changed in order to
respect their privacy
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