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December 5, 2003/Kislev 10 5764, Vol. 56, No.11
Homes for the holidays
Seniors in resident homes redefine religious celebrations
RAEANNE MARSH
Special to Jewish News
Residents participate in a menorah-lighting ceremony each year at Kivel Campus of Care in Phoenix. Pictured, from left, are Doris Stein, Lillian Wolfson and Helen Schwartz.
Photo by Crystal Corriere
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There is a heightened sense of festivity when Hanukkah comes around. Families decorate their homes and make plans to gather and celebrate together. If "home" is a nursing home, the experience may be a little different, and that difference is felt by nursing home residents as well as their families.
Care facilities range widely in the level of care they provide, but there seems to be a consensus among caregivers that helping their residents celebrate holidays is an important part of their service.
"They need their culture in their lives," says Jacquelyn Weaver, activities director at Village Oaks at Mesa, adding that's part of meeting the residents' need for home living. Village Oaks is not a Jewish facility, but "we meet the needs of each resident." Since she is not Jewish, she believes it is her responsibility to find and bring in someone else who can provide appropriate programming for Jewish residents.
"You're failing in your job if you do not meet (the residents') expectations," declares Weaver.
For Lillian Wolfson, a resident at Kivel Campus of Care, a constituent agency of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix, expectations for Hanukkah center on the menorah lighting. Speaking fondly of the several Hanukkahs she has celebrated at Kivel, she describes how, with residents gathered in one of the large social areas, Kivel's Rabbi Martin Scharf lights a "big, big menorah," says the prayers every night and tells the story of Hanukkah. But the menorah is electric - for safety reasons - and Wolfson says she misses a menorah with candles.
"The lights from the candles are so beautiful," she says. "They made it really feel like Hanukkah."
She recalls previous Hanukkahs, where her family used to get together, "have a nice dinner, and have fun talking."
But now is "a different time," she says. "It's terrible - at one time families lived near each other, but not today."
One of her sons lives in Georgia, the other in the Phoenix area.
To celebrate Hanukkah, she is happy that her local son brings her a menorah. "I love when it lights up, especially on the seventh and eighth nights."
Marjorie Sperekas also resides at Kivel where, she notes, "they provide a lot of occasions to be together." She is agreeable to volunteer Saralee Beletz's enthusiastic plans to organize a Hanukkah party at Kivel, complete with potato latkes. And as far as a family celebration, she says, "My family has been grown up for so long. They do their own thing."
They do visit, however, and she sees her grandchildren often. She looks forward to spending a day this holiday season with family - Christmas day, she says, because that is a day when everyone is home from work.
In some cases, the residents may not really have expectations. Scharf explains that to be able to look forward to a holiday, it is necessary to have an awareness of the progression of days marked by the calendar. Not all men and women in care facilities have that cognition, he points out.
That consideration is echoed by Linda Bliss who, through her Phoenix company Bliss & Friel, helps families find care facilities for seniors no longer able to live by themselves. The senior is often "past the point of knowing or caring that it's a holiday. But," she adds, "their family cares."
Having a loved one in a care facility can be an emotionally wrenching experience every day, but the holidays have their own poignancy.
"Holidays are not the same anymore," says Elayne Klahr, whose husband Lenny needs the 24-hour care that Kivel provides. Her husband has vascular dementia, Klahr explains, and while he seems very aware of people's presence when they visit him - and especially loves having his grandchildren visit - she does not know how aware he is of anything else, including holidays.
Married for 55 years, she visits him every day and does her best to help him celebrate the holidays. But for herself she doesn't do much. "Holidays are rough," she notes. The emotional difficulties have been especially hard for their son, Klahr confides. "He always adored his father," she says. She recognizes how difficult he finds it to visit, an experience that she has found is shared more often by sons than daughters.
Holidays for the Klahrs used to mean large family gatherings of 35-40 people, Klahr recalls, including friends their kids brought home from college because "nobody should be alone for the holidays."
Although fortunate in having their two daughters here in Phoenix and their son just south of Tucson, Khahr is not able to have Lenny join them when the families get together for holiday dinners because she is not able to transport him. For herself, she neither throws big parties nor decorates, although she still does light the menorah.
Harry Sherman also took care to help his wife, Anne, celebrate Hanukkah, indeed all the holidays, while she was a patient at Kivel. She was there for two years before passing away earlier this year, and he was with her all the time.
"It's an emotional state, no question about it," he says. Married more than 60 years, he remembers all the cookies and cakes she would bake for the holidays, a sharp contrast to being "tethered to the feeding tube" during her last years. The feeding tube didn't keep her from enjoying company, and she would greet everyone as Sherman would push her around in her wheelchair. She especially enjoyed visiting with her family, he says - three daughters, sons-in-law and several grandchildren.
Sherman takes pleasure in their close family relationships and relates that when a grandson married and Anne was unable to attend, they had a second symbolic marriage ceremony with her at Kivel. Special for Hanukkah, Anne had a menorah-toting doll her daughter had found. A royal blue, plush teddy bear, it responds to each squeeze by lighting up another candle on the menorah it holds.
"Anne just loved this," Sherman shares, holding it gently.
Children of seniors in nursing care often make an extra effort at the holidays to have their parent join them. Says Barbara Singer of her mom, Roslyne Kochman, "She joins right in like she's 25 years old. The only difference is we have to get her."
Admits Singer, "We've changed a lot of what we do to accommodate her," happy to be able to have her mom join them. But she misses the way her mom used to decorate her house for Hanukkah. Now, she says, "I have to make the effort to make sure Hanukkah is there, (to) make sure she has the atmosphere of the holiday where she is."
Singer educates the non-Jewish caregivers at her mom's board and care facility, and even provides them with simple crafts they can share with everyone there. And she appreciates the fact that she can add Hanukkah decorations throughout the facility, including alongside the Christmas tree.
Important as the holidays may be when they roll around, how the home celebrates them is usually a non-issue in deciding where to place a family member. For Singer - who has always been very active in her temple, Beth Hillel in North Hollywood, Calif., and who, when her children were very young, even tried to shield them from Santa Claus - the first priority was finding a place that would meet her mom's needs and be nearby.
That is the norm, according to Dan Sabad, whose Phoenix-based company, ElderOp, provides services that include helping families place seniors in care facilities. However, his company includes religious factors in their assessments when recommending a care facility. His partner, Roben Phillips, notes that families are always welcome to arrange off-site holiday celebrations unless there are medical reasons that preclude it. She has found there is often a misconception about this and relates the experience of one family who needed to place the mother in a care facility.
"They thought they would never see her for the holidays. When the facility explained they could take their mother out, they broke down and cried," she says.
Gina Day, owner of Compass Rose in Scottsdale, has also found that the topic of holiday celebration does not come up when a family is placing a loved one in a care facility.
So she brings it up herself.
"I talk with the family about their own holiday traditions," she says. And she reminds the resident that Hanukkah is just around the corner. She encourages a sense of family within her facility, including interaction among the residents, and observes, "I'm a firm believer that we learn from each other's faith."
Food, she notes, is one thing the residents can still enjoy even when they may be unable to participate in other holiday activities. "Potato latkes are great," she says, because they can fit soft-diet restrictions.
Making the holiday special often means sharing a family dinner away from the care facility. Lucia Ardelean, owner of Avant One in Scottsdale, encourages this and tells prospective families, "Do the best you can for your parents because once they're gone, you can't do any more."
She also gives a gift to residents, and observes, "Even small things can make them happy." Even a card means a lot, she notes. Other gifts that are appreciated include hand or body lotion (for the ladies, "it makes them feel special," observes Ardelean), doublewide slippers, and decorations. ("I would like to decorate my room," says Wolfson, "but I can't get to the store.") And visits.
Harry Sherman, who still attends Saturday morning services at Kivel, has always made a point of visiting other residents even when his purpose was to visit his wife. "They have so few friends and relatives," he says, adding that even when visitors do come it's usually just a quick "hi and goodbye."
Visits from children are especially enjoyed, he notes. In that regard, Kivel often arranges to have visits from schoolchildren to help celebrate the holiday and share a Hanukkah party. In some years, such as this one, arranging that is more difficult because Hanukkah falls during the winter school break.
Memories of past holidays are a big part of current holiday celebrations.
"In nursing homes, people like to reminisce," observes Scharf, adding, "A lot of emotions come up because there are a lot of years covered."
These go back to their own childhood as well as that of their kids. Older memories are often stronger because many residents suffer short-term memory loss. But Scharf notes the importance of making new memories. "We do things to make them laugh and smile," he says.
And that leads to fond memories.
RaeAnne Marsh is a local free-lance writer.
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