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For The First Time... All Over Again! by Nora Peacock
"How immense! It goes on forever! How can anything be so huge?! Beautiful, incredible..." and so my thoughts swirled, as I literally gasped with disbelief at my first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean. As a fourteen year-old girl, prone to all the waves of emotions typical of those turbulent years, I was overcome with awe at what lay in front of me. Even as I write this I find myself experiencing again some of the joy and wonder of that precious moment of discovery. Yet, no matter how hard I try to entirely recapture those first-time feelings, I can’t. As much as I still love and appreciate the ocean, I can never truly realize the intensity of what I felt that day.
Have you ever wished that you could somehow relive special memories in your life--even if just for a brief window in time? Now, thirty-plus years later (I don’t want to say how many "plus"), I am working in a field with endless opportunities for that very wish to come true in the lives of those I work with at Lambert House West. Located in Portland, Oregon, Lambert House West is a senior adult day care program primarily providing services for those who are dealing with various levels of dementia.
On numerous occasions, I have been asked questions on the order of, "Isn’t it depressing to work with people who can’t remember five minutes later what just happened?" or "Don’t you get tired of saying things again and again?" You who work in the profession of caring for seniors could continue the list of questions "ad infinitum" which all lean to the negative. I would be less than honest to not admit that there are times when it can become a ‘downer’ if I focus on the heartache that is very much a part of dementia.
Thank goodness, there is also sweet serendipity in the work we do. "Seren-what?" The best description I’ve heard of serendipity is "to be surprised by joy!" One of my favorite hobbies is to decorate cakes, so-o-o-o....about once each month, I involve the participants at Lambert House West in mixing frosting colors and putting all kinds of things on cakes. Silk flowers, miniature balloons, cute little black ants (Honest! There are cute ants as long as they’re plastic!), sugar-mold fish, stars and pumpkins are just a few of the fun items we’ve played with together. At each stage of frosting the cake, adding borders, and placing decorations, I walk around the room with cake in hand, pausing to lean toward each participant, allowing each one to see and to feel they are part of the decorating process. On one occasion I made a "Grand Piano". As I stopped in front of one of our very distinguished gentlemen, there were tears streaming down his face--tears of joy. Later, I learned he had been a classical pianist. He no longer even remembers that he could play at all, but something struck a chord in his heart when he saw the piano cake. I don’t know who was more touched, him or me. Just a few minutes later his memory of seeing the cake was gone...until...he walked past it again. "For The First Time...All Over Again" joy danced in his eyes as he rediscovered the piano sitting on his table for the lunch hour. Tucked away for the night in the refrigerator, "his cake" was waiting to be taken out again upon his arrival the next day.
This is only one of countless instances I could share with you of seeing the participants at Lambert House West enjoying first-time moments over and over. How rewarding it is to be in a career that allows me to have a part in bringing serendipity into the lives of the special seniors I work with and to experience, through their eyes, first time joy again and again!
Nora Peacock is the Program Coordinator Assistant at Lambert House West in King City, Oregon.
Reprinted from The Information Source for Adult Day Centers®, September 1997 |