Bloom where you are planted. A bishop from way back when is credited with saying it- and it is in the Bible a few times. Mary Engelbreit made it a household phrase in the late 1980’s- or there about.
Anyway, if you think about it- we get the opportunity to bloom quite often in our lives. We bloom when we are born and keep blooming throughout our lives, we either bloom in our younger years in a safe harbor and stay for the rest of our lives and stay rooted. Or we may choose to transplant ourselves throughout our short lives to find the perfect spot. Either way we continue to bloom. Some seasons we are more vibrant that others, some seasons we do not get enough of something and we look all withered and faded- but we continue to bloom.
Dorothy is finally settled in a place where she is blooming a glorious color. She is happy, she is content, she has friends, she feels useful. Paul and my decision to move her to a new facility in the midst of a global pandemic has paid off. When we first moved her- as you may remember from a previous post-, they had to shut the facility down due to someone inside testing positive for the Covid 19. Not only was she in a new environment she could not get planted. she was wilting away.
After about 9 weeks we made another decision to move her into memory care at the new facility. Dorothy was really unhappy, confused and frustrated in assisted – no-one was allowed out of their rooms- this did not stop her she was out anyway all the time (lol- you can’t tell her she can’t do something, I know where I get it (-: ) . I must admit we had a tough decision- we just moved her out of memory care due to the fact that we were not happy with where she was and questioned the care and the management.
We moved mom on a Saturday- the one condition I had was that Paul and I did the moving- not the facility. They agreed and when we got there- mom was in Memory Care where she was freshly transplanted. She had been there for almost a week during the day and she would go back to her room in Assisted Living to sleep. She was a happy woman! When Paul and I walked in- she was not even excited to see us. She, I’m sure was thinking- “what are you doing on my turf”. She did not get up out of her seat, didn’t want to help us move her. She had no interest of leaving her newfound friends. (more on them in a future post)
Paul and I moved her without any drama, and we were able to downsize her again, this time into a one room unit- with a bath. As I was moving her closet and purging at the same time, I was thinking of the way we come into this world, with nothing- our parents supply everything we need, when we are old enough to make our money and our own choices on what buy – we buy what we want. When we get out on our own, raise a family, (or not), we collect and collect and collect. Clothes, trinkets, treasures and memories. All the clothes, trinkets and treasures are all minimized along the way to what are needs become. At the end, there is not a lot we need and at the very end there is nothing we need. Less, really is more- and in some cases less will make you bloom more radiant.
Peace & Love,
Cheryl Doreen
Dorothy's Dementia 