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The senior you see before you in a nursing
home had a very different life before they arrived there. If you’re going to be placing your relative
in a nursing home, don’t miss the opportunity to really find out about
them before the placement. Start having
a conversation with them and discover what their favourite job was, did they
always live in Toronto
or did they come from somewhere else?
Life is lived so fast, especially in Toronto, that people
frequently have no idea about their elderly relatives. They really don’t know them. They might know generalities but they don’t
know that their parents, aunts/uncles or grandparents may have lived through
really historical times and even participated in some momentous events. Try to take the time to have on-going
conversations with your loved-one and find out their history which, don’t
forget, is also your history.
Perhaps you’ve always thought that your
parents lived a quiet or even boring life.
By the time you arrived on the scene, they had routines that seemed
unbreakable. That might be the case but
not necessarily. Before you were the
apple of their eye perhaps they had travelled across the country or they had
been champion swing dancers or they wrote long, passionate love letters to each
other. Who knew that you had that in
your family history? Unless you start to
ask questions, you might never find out all that your older relatives have to
offer.
Begin to gather pictures and stories about
your family; if you don’t have the time to do this, there are companies and
individuals that provide this service.
Having a written and visual history of your relatives allows you to see
them in a more complete manner. They are
fully rounded individuals who, you might be surprised to learn, had some of the
same hopes, fears and dreams that you have.
They may have been viewed as the rebel of the family or perhaps they
were the one that everyone relied upon.
Finding out about your relatives will allow
you to have conversations with them when they are in the nursing home. It won’t be so difficult to find things to talk
about. Visiting elderly family members
will be much easier if you have several topics of conversation. Many people say that visiting someone in a
nursing home is difficult because there’s nothing to talk about. Plan for the visits before the placement
happens.
Your visit will mean a lot to your
relative. It shouldn’t be viewed as a
chore; it should be an opportunity to chat and to continue to build on your relationship. This may provide the quiet time for you to
tell your relative just how much they mean to you. Take the occasion to hold their hand and
laugh with them. Don’t leave it too
long.
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