The Wedding Veil(35)
No, it wasn’t the ocean, and waking up and falling to sleep without the crash of the waves on the shore was going to take some getting used to. But the community’s “main house,” as they called it—which included assisted living in its wings but was essentially a huge, oceanfront beach club otherwise—was a two-minute walk and always full of people.
That was the thing I couldn’t explain to my daughters. I was lonely. I still had bridge club and book club and plenty of friends to visit, regular Wednesday night dinners and Saturday lunches with my girls. But it was more than that. After spending fifty-five years living with the same man and twenty-two years raising our children together, the house full of their friends and laughter, I felt so terribly alone.
I was certain I would spend many a day on this screened-in porch with my coffee and a book. But knowing I could pop up for a meal if I wished, that I could take up golf or join in on nightly happy hours, that I could learn to knit, take Zumba, and participate in daily devotionals, made me feel so joyful I could burst.
Anna smiled. “Mrs. Carlisle, do your children want to tour the unit?”
I controlled my eye roll. There it was again, that assumption that I was now the child, and my children were in charge of my goings-on. Maybe that would happen one day. But not yet.
“My children don’t actually know I’m here,” I said. “They aren’t thrilled about the idea of my downsizing, so I want to be extremely sure before I tell them.”
She nodded. “A woman who knows her own mind. I love it.”
I did know my own mind. But listening to myself instead of them was hard. Opening the door to the master suite, which was situated to also have a lovely lagoon view, Anna continued the tour. “And the bathrooms, of course, have walk-in tubs.”
I wanted to tell her—obstinately—that I was still perfectly capable of getting in and out of my own bathtub. But it was getting difficult. How many more years did I have of that, really? A walk-in tub might be a perfectly splendid contraption as I got older.
“Would you care to see the apartment options as well?” she asked, smiling.
I shook my head. “I don’t believe so.”
“Well then let’s go tour the rest of the facility!” she said excitedly.
We climbed into the yellow-and-white-striped Summer Acres golf cart waiting out front, which, if the brochure was to be believed, matched the umbrellas on the beach that I would be all too thrilled to sit under on summer days.
As we drove past the tennis and pickleball courts, a bocce area and basketball court, Anna said, “In the town-home area, we handle all medication delivery, and housekeeping visits for an hour each day to help with daily chores. On Fridays, they come for two hours to get you spic and span for the next week and change your sheets.”
“Really?” I asked, noting that I felt more excited about not having to change my sheets than I did about the main house’s ocean views.
I hadn’t yet been inside the clubhouse, so it made me a little nervous. But as I opened the large glass door and stepped onto the wide-plank hardwood floors, I found it even more beautiful than its pictures. A young man waved at me from the activities desk, where Anna led me. She handed me a glossy magazine that looked more like Town & Country than a brochure. “You will receive one of these each week with all the available activities. Of course, golf, tennis, the beach, the pool, and athletic club facilities are available anytime, but we love to see our residents at theme nights, band parties, mixers, dances…” She took a breath and continued. “We’re actually revamping our lifelong learning program to include not only more speakers but also six-week dedicated classes on everything from the French Revolution to Indian cuisine.”
“I feel like I’m back in college!” I said. Back in college with one glaring exception: I was very much without my Reid. I felt weepy at the thought. But, then again, Reid would not have been terribly fond of Summer Acres, so that was a small consolation.
“You’re going to love it here, Mrs. Carlisle,” the man behind the desk said. “There’s everything to do, and nothing if you prefer it.”
I smiled warmly at him. “What about dining?” I asked Anna.
“If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you,” she said.
She led me toward the full dining room, which had vaulted ceilings, huge windows, and French doors that took advantage of the peerless views of the sand dunes and the ocean beyond. “You’ll see here that there are many, many options. We don’t want residents to feel like they are being assigned a table, but we also don’t want anyone to feel alone before they have the chance to make friends, so we have a bit of a buddy system at the beginning while you’re getting acclimated. Afterward, you are welcome to sit with anyone you like, no one at all, or at the communal table.”
It felt more like a club than a nursing home, and for that, I was glad. I thought the girls would love it as much as I did.
“Shall we go check out the casual dining area and coffee bar?”
I raised my eyebrow. “Am I going to become a woman who can’t get going in the morning without her latte?”
She winked at me. “I believe you are.”
After the tour, Anna urged me to bring my family back, to think it over with them before making such a huge decision. But Summer Acres was perfect—and, most important, I could move through levels of care here that would carry me through the rest of my life. I prayed that I would never have to endure years of treatments or hundreds of doctor’s appointments, but old age required a lot of maintenance even for those of us in good health. Having someone to drive me to and from appointments, take me to the grocery store if I could no longer drive, and many other conveniences was almost as appealing as having three meals a day cooked for me and bingo on Thursday nights against the backdrop of live music and signature cocktails.