8/2/12 -- Leaving Home, Going Home

We are getting ready for a party.  Another one.  This one is different from the gatherings we've been to, farewell parties.  We're throwing this party.  It's a thank-you party to all our friends here at Hawthorne Terrace where we live.  We don't have farewell parties here when someone leaves.  We didn't want one.  But we want to honor this community and its people.  It has been a wonderful home.

It's a big deal for us.

The Hawthorne has done wonderful things for us and I'd like to tell you a bit about it.  When we came here three years ago, I was still using a walker a lot of the time.  I needed a wheelchair for anything over a block.  My balance was bad.  I was debilitated from the accident.  I was weak from having to be sedentary for several years.  I didn't dare walk outside by myself because I tripped on tiny variations in the sidewalk -- I needed someone to walk with me.  This meant I didn't walk anywhere but through the three downstairs rooms of our house.  My rehab had brought me a long way from the accident in 2004 but I was still very handicapped.  Adina was limited because of my disabilities.

Hawthorne Terrace - Home

The Hawthorne has been my salvation.  It provides independent housing for seniors.  I guess I have to admit that I am a senior now at age 68.  Seniors live in 100 apartments -- one and two bedroom units.  The building used to be Hawthorne Middle School.  After the school closed, Riley Joseph Company bought it, remodeled it and added a wing.  I've never seen any place like it.

The old school building was modeled after Independence Hall in  Philadelphia, Pennsylavania, giving it a majestic appearance.  It stands on a hill overlooking Honey Creek Parkway.  When the school was in session, each graduating class planted a different kind of tree on the school grounds.  Many of these trees still exist.  The grounds are beautiful with sloping lawns, beautiful flowers and all those trees. 

Residents plant flowers wherever landscaping doesn't exist or in flowerbeds, then tend them lovingly.  They sign up for garden spaces in back.  It is fenced to keep the deer out.  Those deer wander across our lawn as if it had been planted just for them.

Adina in the Garden in Early Spring

The garden space may keep the deer out but it didn't keep a woodchuck from burrowing under it a couple of years ago.  The brazen fellow broke into Mary's section.  She was horrified.  The hungry woodchuck ate two rows of mature broccoli, ate them down to the nubs, as well as a couple of rows of other vegetables.  I remember standing by the garden fence and looking down at those sad little broccoli nubs.  That woodchuck must have had one healthy gut after all that broccoli!

A grey fox lives in the woods behind the facility.  He is very shy but every spring we have heard him below our window, singing love songs and hoping for a lady love.  A fox doesn't sound like any other animal.  It is a cross between a coyote yipping and an injured rabbit squealing.  The other night when I came home late, I saw him for the first time as he flashed across the lawn in the moonlight.  I was caught by wonder.

The staff here are wonderful and bend over backwards taking care of everyone.  They treat us all like royalty.  Yet this facility is less expensive than most places.  We're going to miss their TLC when we move.  Several of the staff live here, so they are taking care of their home too, not just ours.  Tim, head of maintainence, has the sweetest daughter, age 3.  They take a walk through the halls sometimes at night and she stops to say hello to all the grandmas that they meet.  This is like a family.  Sweet.

The Hawthorne Library

We have a lot of amenities -- massage parlor, beauty parlor, grocery store, library and computer lab.  For those who want exercise, we have a gym.  People can ease aches and pains in the whirlpool. 

The van takes residents to local mega-grocery stores, drug store and bank once a week.  We are only two blocks from the bus stop.  We've got everything.

Then there's the people who live here.  It was hard for us when I had to quit working at the church and we lost that community.  Then we came here.  The Hawthorne has a culture of welcome.  I hope that continues for a long time.

People live a long time here.  One resident is 102 years old, still living on her own.  Last year the facility threw a "Gay Ninties" tea for all the residents over ninety.  Twenty-three Senior Seniors attended.  Not bad, eh?

As for us, the Hawthorne gave us both a new lease on life.  We were feeling old and a little useless after our time at Pilgrim Christian Church ended.  Living among people who range from 55-102, all active and independent, made us feel young again.  Because we felt younger and were surrounded by great role models, we started doing more. 

Adina was freed from my ambulation needs.  At first, I used a walker, then a cane and the railings along the walls.  I walked down to the lobby twice a day without help and soon gained strength.  Last year I was able to do some hiking on level paths and with some rests.  I loved getting out in the woods again.  Last year I started driving again for the first time since the accident.  The Hawthorne gave me my life back.  Since Adina didn't have to do so much care-giving, she became more involved in her meditation group and in life here.

I had been doing a little writing and now began to write books, gathering some of the material I had written and writing new.  Since I moved here, I have published 10 books.  I finished my last book, "The Viking Beneath My Skin" in May and have three more in the hopper partially finished.  I'm taking a hiatus from that work until after we get to our new home out west.

 We have loved our apartment with its big picture window and view of the soccer field and the trees beyond it.  We have two bedrooms/two baths, 900 square feet.  When we came they asked us what color we wanted the walls.  We said, "What?!"  They told us what paint store to go to and that we should go and pick out paint chips for each room.  We never heard of any place that let you do that!

When we moved here, I asked if there was a Scrabble group, not really expecting anything.  Mary said, "No, but why don't you start one!"  I said I couldn't while we were still moving in. 

Six months later she called and asked if I was ready to start a Scrabble group yet.  Mary remembers everything!  We picked a date and put out the word. 

"I tell you, 'mrrow' is a real word! 
Did I tell you that I have claws?"

Now we have a lively group that meets twice a week.  Our goals are "to make our brains do mental push-ups and to be sure that everyone has a good time."  I'm going to miss that group.

All the activities are started and run by residents here.  We are truly independent. 

I guess I could go on a long time about how great this place is.  Mostly, we want to say thank you to Hawthorne Terrace and to all my friends here.

We are leaving home.  Our twelve years here in Wisconsin have been good for the most part, although we have had some bumps along the way.  We could have found life-bumps anywhere.

We are also going home.  Both of us lived most of our adult lives in Washington State.  We have family there.   We have friends there.  We have driven her highways and camped all over the state.  We have watched whales play and stopped for a bear to cross a mountain road ahead of us.  Living here we have missed that even while we have grown to appreciate Wisconsin's beauty.

Leaving home, going home.  There is a bittersweet quality to it.  A funny combination of sadness and excitement.