Your gifts to the residents of the Mansion Assisted Care Facility in my town of Cambridge have upended this quiet and peaceful place. There are blankets, bags of yarn, books, letters, cards, paintings, drawings, stuffed animals, photos, poems and too many other gifts to remember.
Your letters and gifts (The Mansion, 11 S. Union Street, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816) have been transformative, the messages alone have filled three bulletin boards. In this season of anger and disconnection, you have made the Mansion a place of love and connection. Your messages mean more than I can say, everyone Red and I see them is talking about them, and many of them sit on tables by bedsides, already dog-eared and read again and again.
The blankets are being used, the paintings hung, the messages read, the yarn is being spun. The care at the Mansion is loving and thorough, the staff is generous, attentive and present. Yet there is something inherently isolating about people being cut off from their lives, families, friends, animals and routines.
The residents are much lifted up by your gifts and thoughts and caring, they say they feel connected and known. Peggy loves the letters she got about her hair color change and painted fingernails.
I feel so very much alive when Red and I are there, I am getting to know some of the residents now, and they are beginning to open up to me about their lives, always so much more interesting that I might otherwise have guessed. These are people who need to be talked to. Often, I just sit down in a chair and let them talk to Red, sometimes they want to talk to me.
Sunday, we spent a half hour with Madeline, one of the center’s newest residents, she is 94 years old, lived and worked in Brooklyn before moving upstate with her husband, who died some years ago. Her daughter needed help and wanted her nearby, Madeline says she is very happy at the Mansion, she is physically in good shape, she walks the halls much of the day.
She and Red bonded last week and he sniffed down the hallway and found her in the activity room, watching TV with a friend. Madeline loves Red, she exploded with excitement at the sight of him and he melted into her arms, as he can do. Madeline is convinced Red’s collar and flea collars are too small, when he is there I have to take them off, I cannot convince her that they are comfortable and don’t try. She worries about him.
Madeline was a phone company executive in New York City for some years, and has never fully embraced the country, it just is not, she says, “as exciting as the city.” But she is upbeat and does not care to look back much. She is an avid reader of non-fiction books, history and other topics.
Today, we saw Madeline, Connie, Chrissy and Mary. Peggy loves getting mail also. You can write to them or any of the residents at the Mansion if you wish, these small acts of kindness are lighting up this corner of the world. The staff says they have never seen anything like it. I do beam with pride at the people who read my blog.
The Mansion, 11 S. Union Street, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. I am planning to buy them some Christmas lights, or flowers for their rooms.