Holiday
If you look down the long slope of Locust Hill Cemetery, past the ordered grave stones, you’ll see Holiday Retirement Village. On the outside it pales in comparison to the “posh hotel†which is Concord Park. However, once you walk in the door, you feel like you’re back in West Concord. The reception area is a bit larger and more formal, but the dining room is just as elegant with linen table cloths and a view, not to woodsy paths, but to a man-made pond. Water tinted blue for some reason. The piano room, instead of being part of the main sitting area, is a space all to itself. There is also a library, a fitness room, and a meeting room where bible classes are held. That is where the inside similarity ends.
The apartments are far superior. Each has a separate bedroom, a full working kitchen and a living room. The bathroom is just as spacious with a sit down shower-although, get this, eight of the units have bathtubs! (I can’t wait to tell Flo.**) Susan, imagine Flo’s apartment after you cleaned it and Matt’s friends were finished painting. Oh, and add new appliances, and even an above and below washer and dryer. I’m not sure this arrangement would have settled Flo entirely, but the move would have been far more seamless. And, with assisted and independent folk living together, she would have more people to talk to.
** Note to Diane and Susan. I am joking.
I’ll post photos later when Chris’s image editing gift arrives. My Retirement Village gallery looks like I was standing on my head or drunk.
From your descriptions of getting lost going “home” (again) and pleading with Jeffrey to let you “dry out”, I’ve been assuming you HAVE been standing on your head. AND drunk.
And are you sure you haven’t just told Flo?
Sounds encouragingly wonderful, all of which will mean precisely zilch to those for whom its role is no theoreticality. But bless you all for your loving care, and bless the proximity and apparent grace of the “Village”.
Comment by adam — June 9, 2005 @ 9:40 am
Thank you for the asterisks. Even I cringed when I read that. Why must they put these things with cemeteries in view? I am a fan of cemeteries and find them peaceful, but there’s something about a retirement home bordering on them that’s just creepy. Our kids elementary school abuts a very historical cemetery here in town, the kind with 200 year old town fathers corpses. When my daughter was small she asked me “Mommy, is this where they put all the dead teachers?” I thought she was brilliant.
Comment by chris — June 9, 2005 @ 6:38 pm
Isn’t she wonderful?
Comment by re:caroline — June 10, 2005 @ 6:16 pm
She is. Mostly.
Comment by chris — June 11, 2005 @ 11:23 am