Home Sweet Home - The Thin Edge of Dignity

Home Sweet Home, Home On the Range, Home Is Where the Heart Is, even I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen – aphorisms and song titles celebrating -the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household.

On the darker side, a home can be - an institution for people needing professional care or supervision. A Nursing Home.

I live in neither an Ordinary Home, nor an Institution. I live in a Facility, an Assisted Living Facility, acronymically known as an ALF. Most ALFs eschew their identity – after all, a Facility can be a Prison, at worst, or, at best, a place provided for a particular purpose.

That’s where I live – in such a place - but, more friendly-like, we call ourselves a Community, painting an image of unity, affection, friendship: old folks circumambulating the residence in pairs, table-mates chatting over meals, residents shutting out the sounds of TV commercials from the apartment next door, etc.Communal living is an embodiment of the African proverb, It takes a village. . . .

I was thrust from myhome into ahome, as followers of my blog know, after cruising into concrete truck, and destroying my car and disrupting my body. The fact that I couldn’t stand without assistance, or walk, or use my hands, made me eligible – not for Publishers Clearing House - but an Assisted Living House. (It’s really a Facility, an ALF, because that’s easy to roll-off-the-tongue: try rolling ALH.)

Propelled as I was, I found myself losing my independence, my singularity, my identity. But, it’s not too bad being a crayon in a box of Crayolas, a rain-drop in an ocean, a speck of sand of a beach.

Profound philosophical questions, but a more important question about the meaning of home is: where will Kathleen be taken?

Dick



Home Sweet Home, Home On the Range, Home Is Where the Heart Is, even I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen – aphorisms and song titles celebrating -the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household.



On the darker side, a home can be - an institution for people needing professional care or supervision. A Nursing Home.



I live in neither an Ordinary Home, nor an Institution. I live in a Facility, an Assisted Living Facility, acronymically known as an ALF. Most ALFs eschew their identity – after all, a Facility can be a Prison, at worst, or, at best, a place provided for a particular purpose.



That’s where I live – in such a place - but, more friendly-like, we call ourselves a Community, painting an image of unity, affection, friendship: old folks circumambulating the residence in pairs, table-mates chatting over meals, residents shutting out the sounds of TV commercials from the apartment next door, etc.Communal living is an embodiment of the African proverb, It takes a village. . . .



I was thrust from myhome into ahome, as followers of my blog know, after cruising into concrete truck, and destroying my car and disrupting my body. The fact that I couldn’t stand without assistance, or walk, or use my hands, made me eligible – not for Publishers Clearing House - but an Assisted Living House. (It’s really a Facility, an ALF, because that’s easy to roll-off-the-tongue: try rolling ALH.)



Propelled as I was, I found myself losing my independence, my singularity, my identity. But, it’s not too bad being a crayon in a box of Crayolas, a rain-drop in an ocean, a speck of sand of a beach.



Profound philosophical questions, but a more important question about the meaning of home is: where will Kathleen be taken?

Dick Weinmann is an AARP volunteer and our Assisted Living (ALF) guru.