MapleCreek Senior Living in Grand Rapids honored Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with an event, “Celebrating Diversity through the Arts” on January 21, 2013.

The day started with a visual art display - residents and families contributed art that they either created themselves or was special to them in some way. Visitors and residents found this display very interesting - as it included pieces from the Netherlands, Djibouti, Africa, Japan as well assome beautiful hand-made pieces.

The program included musical performances and a panel of experts from Grand Rapids-area hospitals.

Two speakers spoke about what their organization is doing to promote inclusion and diversity; Frank Grant, HR Center of Expertise-System Inclusion & Diversity for Spectrum Health and Bradford Mathis, Director of Community Benefits, Integration and Health Care for St. Mary’s. Eric Foster, Inclusion and Diversity consultant was the emcee for the event.

"We hold this event because it allows us to celebrate how art and diversity play an important role not only in our everyday life at MapleCreek, but also within the Grand Rapids community,” said Jay Prince, executive director for MapleCreek. “We are excited to have Frank, Eric and Bradford speak about how they are promoting diversity in our local hospitals.”

For those who braved the blizzard outside to attend this event, the day was heartwarming.

On June 30, The Woods at MapleCreek in Grand Rapids teamed with Connie's Bridal for a wedding fashion show. The Woods at MapleCreek is a specialized memory care community on the MapleCreek campus. There were wedding dresses modeled and on display from the 1930’s until today that belong to residents, staff and friends. Connie’s Bridal provided the the current wedding fashions.

In the photo are Ethel, a resident; her niece, Rachel, who is wearing Ethel's wedding dress from 1952; and Rachel's daughter, Madox.

"This was a terrific opportunity to provide a positive intergenerational social engagement, specifically geared toward dementia," said Beth Terborg, certified therapeutic recreation therapist at The Woods at MapleCreek. “Large events, such as weddings tend to stick out in the minds of dementia patients, and there are usually positive connotations associated with them. The idea for the event started with a relaxation group and the residents ended up reminiscing about their weddings.”

The current owners of Connie’s Bridal, Maria Hacker, Gabriela Garcia and Gabriela De La Vega, have a special connection to MapleCreek. Gabriela’s first job was as a nursing assistant at the senior living community. Her experience at MapleCreek (over a decade ago) was one that has touched her heart.

Mlive featured the story on their website and on the front page of the Southeast Advance newspaper. Read the article here:  http://www.mlive.com/kentwood/index.ssf/2012/06/wedding_fashion_show_designed.html

Apparently they call it cognitive dissonance—a mental phenomenon that occurs when the ideas or beliefs commonly tied with an event or place conflict with reality. Dissonance usually breeds discomfort. Think of that scene, for instance, from “The Sound of Music” when Julie Andrews returns to the nunnery after months of nannying for the Von Tropp children; she expects a happy homecoming, a return of the comfort, safety, and familiarity from her days of youth, but what she experiences is dissatisfaction, displacement, and a longing for what has become her new home with the Von Tropps. If you have your PhD, you say that Julie Andrews is experiencing an identity crisis fueled by cognitive dissonance. If you’re a normal person, you say she is confused, and has a bit of soul-searching to do.

I think I experienced a bit of cognitive dissonance one Sunday last month when, returning from my lunch break, I could hear singing coming from the Woods’ chapel—quite normal, you say, but imagine my shock when I found it was not the chorus of some old spiritual (“Come Thou Fount” perhaps), but the roistering anthem of sports fans everywhere, Queen’s classic “We Will Rock You.” A retirement community. On a Sunday. Singing Queen. Was I missing something?

Further dissonance ensued when, upon investigation, I found not only alter pieces, vestments, and hymnals adorning the chapel, but speaker boxes, laptop computers (macbooks no less), and eclectic lighting effects. The congregants, too, joined in the fray, a mixture of well-mannered, venerable seniors and spunky teenagers, complete with ripped denim and spiky hairstyles. Myself: a mixture of wonder, fear and trembling. Apparently it’s called “Intergenerational Rock Choir”— the brainchild of Kameri Muir, a senior from Florida State University who, for her final project in the Music Therapy program concocted a way of bridging the gap between the young and old through song. “I just love doing this,” says Kameri energetically after choir practice, held typically on Sunday afternoons. “Everybody responds to music—it’s a great connector. And it’s multipurpose, you know: you refresh the older generation while inspiring the new.”

 The formula itself is inspired: take a group of teenagers eager to exercise their melodious chops (drawn, in this case, largely from volunteers from Forest Hills Eastern high school); put them together with a group of thriving retirees (drawn, of course, from the vivacious population of MapleCreek); place a dynamic song leader in front of them (I don’t think Kameri stopped singing or moving once), and the result is no less than orchestral. But the core of her concept lies in finding classic hits that both ends of the age spectrum will recognize and consider “their own” in some degree; music thus becomes the common ground, a mutual space in which the two groups, so different in so many ways, can relate and engage one another effectively. In other words, real community between the two populations is possible with ambassadors like Freddy Mercury, James Brown, and Bob Dylan.

With my dissonance dissipating, I was more prepared than most, I think, when on April 17^th the Intergenerational Rock Choir held its first concert in Trinity chapel. It was (I can’t help myself) a show for the ages; a chapel full of family members and loved ones sat in awe as hit after classic hit

issued from the choir, from the soulful camaraderie of “Lean on Me” to the exuberant frivolity of “I Got You!” Many songs took on deeper meanings, given the context—The Who’s “My Generation,” for example, struck exactly the right theme of unification that the choir seemed to manifest, and when Dylan’s “Forever Young” poured forth, there were, as Woods’ Life Enrichment Coordinator Beth Terborg recalls, “tears everywhere!”

“It was such an awesome time,” Beth reminisces, offering her kudos to Kameri for a job well done: “families were really impressed.”

It is a truth universally acknowledged that normal people are afraid of needles. It is also true that this fear is probably rooted in childhood trauma—I still shudder when I think of my early trips to the doctor’s office for annual shots: the quiet anxiety of the car ride turning slowly to agony in the waiting room, building quickly towards panic upon entering the patient room, yielding to horror as the doctor unsheathed his weapon, and culminating finally with uncontrollable sobs as the needle plunged. If preventative health required sharp pokes to the arm, I preferred the flu.

Perhaps Virginia Speese never got her shots. Or maybe she’s just not a wimp. Either way, the 84-year-old resident of the Lodge at MapleCreek went willingly, even happily, to an establishment called “Screaming Needles,” a moniker evoking all the warmth and charm of a haunted house. Insanity, you say, but with her birthday month just around the corner, Virginia could think of no better way to celebrate than by fulfilling a life-long dream—getting a tattoo!

“I’ve always wanted to get one,” says Virginia with a tinge of rebelliousness in her voice, “but I never dreamed it was possible, especially at my age!” Inconceivable though it may seem, her wish, dismissed for so long as an opportunity missed, was reborn during a conversation with her great granddaughter, Brittany Wellman. Realizing this was something more than mere mid-life crisis mischief, Brittany sprang into action with all the fire of a new generation. Buses were called, appointments were made, and on April 7, 2012, laughter could be heard coming from the operating room of Screaming Needles.

Before you ask, “it did NOT hurt. Why does everyone always ask that first?” More interesting for Virginia is the meaning behind the tattoo itself: a small, curled-up kitten perched at the top of her shoulder, representing her own cat “Sandra,” which currently lives in another building on campus. Its real meaning, however, is best summed up by Virginia herself: “I’ve learned this—you are never too old to do the things you want to do.”

Recently, Pastor Rebecca Ebb-Speese (Pastor Becky), MapleCreek's director of pastoral care was approached by a journalist, G. Jeffrey MacDonald who was doing an article on the change of faith in seniors.

The article, titled "Soul Search," appears in the May's USA TODAY special publication, "The Best Years." Pastor Becky gives insight about what she's learned about senior faith from working at MapleCreek. She talks about how some seniors grow spiritually, even after moving into a retirement community.

She mentioned how seniors often have a hard time feeling comfortable with faith. 

From the article: "Ebb-Speese says many newcomers hesitate at first, worrying they don't have the right clothes for worship, lack the right knowledge for discussion, or can't spare a dollar for the offering ...  "But somehow when they're here, they mellow ... A lot of them enter into religious activity through personal one-on-one relationships.""

She also tried to break down some stereotypes about seniors:

""People have an assumption that seniors are very stuck in their ways, but they are not," Ebb-Speese says. "There's something about the senior years that enables them to blossom and be open to new things, much more so than middleaged people.""

MapleCreek resident, Jean Skiver, who was recently baptized by Pastor Becky, was quoted in the article as well. To read the full article click here, and to order a copy of the magazine, click here.

Winter afternoons can be a bit dull, what with the cold, the clouds, the crust of ice and snow covering the sidewalks. There are times, of course, when this kind of weather is just what my mood calls for, but such a mood demands a delicate mixture of coffee, cookies, and cozy, and is normally reserved for weekends. This, unfortunately, is Monday, and Old Man Michigan seems arrayed in his finest drear and drab.

Connie Wiersma and Nora Kuipers have a solution, “a little light,” as they describe it, “for these wintry afternoons.” As they speak, a warm, familiar aroma fills the small kitchenette where we sit, and a slight ding from the nearby oven assures me that everything will be alright—cookies! The two ladies waste no time; oven mitts on, spatulas at the ready, you can think of them as MapleCreek’s own heroic tandem, a dynamic duo battling simultaneously the Winter Grays and Monday Blues.  Slowly the oven opens, revealing a mouthwatering batch of chocolate chip cookies.

Every Monday from 2pm-4pm, Connie and Nora volunteer at the Woods at MapleCreek, serving cookies, juice, and (you guessed it) coffee to each person they meet. Connie, herself a resident at the Terraces, and Nora, who has previous experience working in another retirement community, know how big of a difference small gestures of service can make to the residents: “I love to serve this population,” Nora tells me. “They need us to show them love, to show them that these can be great years in life.” A little cookie, in other words, can go a long way in fostering community life here at the Woods, where for two hours a week everyone in the dining room is smiling for the same reason, residents and staff alike (I myself have been known to eat one or two….).

But, as is so often the case, Connie finds the time and effort she puts in to blessing others constantly coming full-circle, so that volunteering, in some respects, becomes a privilege. When Connie first moved into the Terraces, she knew she wanted to get involved around the campus, and a myriad of opportunities were readily available; serving cookies caught her eye, however, because the name “Nora Kuipers,” who at that time had already been serving the Woods for a while, somehow sounded familiar. As it turns out, the two were members of the same church years back, and their kids were in grade school together. Right away, then, baking cookies on Monday afternoons became a great way for the two to reconnect. Even more so, though, Connie’s experience in volunteer work has led to a sense of personal fulfillment and satisfaction that she did not expect initially, a relationship with the Woods’ residents that she now covets: “I look forward to Mondays. I enjoy being with the residents here. It brings light to my life too.”

Looking forward to Mondays? Hard to believe, but it’s true—I thank the ladies and take my leave, but not before a fresh cookie is thrust into my hand and an enthusiastic “we’ll be here next week!” left ringing in my ears. Thank God…..    

These thoughts on Lent are from Pastor Rebecca Ebb-Speese, chaplain at MapleCreek in Grand Rapids.

I have been pondering what I should be giving up for Lent this year. A given is always sugar. But this year I have had an awakening that Lent is for receiving, which requires giving up the need for fierce independence.

I started Lent this year by having knee surgery. This has given me the gift of a little over two weeks off work. I looked forward to this time of rest and reflection at the beginning of Lent. 

Now, a few days into my leave, I have had to experience a lot of giving up: of independence, of driving, of cooking my own meals (that’s a gift in its own right!), of caring for the household chores. I have given up most of these to my husband, who is willing to give of his time to take over.

When I was in the recovery room, the surgeon came in to tell me how the surgery went. I was quite surprised to hear him say that I had donor parts in my knee. At first, I thought it was kind of creepy to realize I had a dead person’s ligaments and cartilage in my body. I didn’t even realize that donor parts were used for knee repair. When I think of organ donors, I think of the big ones, like the heart, lung and liver. It never occurred to me that that what seem like small, insignificant body parts are also used. And I never imagined myself being a recipient. Wow! Someone’s death gave me new parts in my knee so that I can experience healing. That sure sounds like Lent to me. Someone else gave his whole life so that we can have new life! 

Lent is about receiving. It’s about receiving the sacrifice of life that Jesus gave to us. It’s about receiving grace and forgiveness. It’s about letting go of our need to be gods in charge of our own lives as we let God guide us and the Holy Spirit open us up to receive wonderful gifts.

I am also learning that Lent is about letting others care for me. I am a professional caregiver. It’s hard for me to be on the receiving end. Most people want to be able to give and care. It’s a gift for them to receive. I am thankful for the gift of my donor’s knee parts, for the gifts of prayers and cards, for meals and flowers, for calls and visits and for the many other ways people are reaching out. I am humbled. As the weeks progress, I will be more and more opened to learn to receive with thankfulness, especially to Jesus for his life-giving gift of going to the cross, which led, ultimately, to his resurrection!

(Photo by Enygmatic-Halycon, Creative Commons)
 

Jean Skiver, 85, just never got around to being baptized. She attended a Baptist church with her first husband, and became close to the pastor’s wife. Her second husband was an active member of a Lutheran church, and she attended worship services with him but never formally joined.

Jean moved to The Terraces in Grand Rapids, which offers catered independent living for active seniors, 13 years ago. She says it’s a very caring community.

“When I moved here, I met a man who is still a friend and who was active in the chapel. I would also attend his Lutheran church in the community,” said Jean, who spent her working years as a housekeeper in a hospital and a college.

At MapleCreek, Jean enjoys the wide variety of social activities that offer fellowship with other residents. She started going to a volunteer-led Bible study Because Jean has some health problems that it hard for others to understand her, she doesn’t like to speak in group settings. She relies on her friend, Barb Bell, who also lives at MapleCreek, to be her voice, helping her to participate in activities she formerly avoided. She also began talking to MapleCreek's chaplain, Rebecca Ebb-Speese, known as Pastor Becky, about spiritual matters. Jean says she enjoys exploring issues of faith.

Early in the new year, Jean told Pastor Becky she wanted to be baptized. “I want to accept God and to feel more connected to church,” she said.  “I had my children baptized and now it’s time for me.”

Pastor Becky officiated at the ceremony and Barb Bell served as Jean's sponsor.

“My quality of life has changed since I moved to MapleCreek and started attending spiritual activities,” Jean said. “I know these are good for me. I feel better about my life.”

After witnessing Jean’s baptism, another resident came to Pastor Becky and said she’d never been baptized either, and she wanted to do it too. Her ceremony was held the following day, with all the residents in attendance serving as sponsors.

MapleCreek, Lutheran Social Services' senior living community in Grand Rapids, has a new option for those who want to live in independent living apartments but who need some extra care. Called "Catered Living Plus," the new program is available in nine Garden Level apartments at The Terraces. With the introduction of Catered Living Plus, a couple with differing needs can move in together and won't have to be separated because one of them requires more care than is usually offered at The Terraces. A new kitchen/dining room and a lounge are being created in the Catered Living Plus section. Resident aides are available around the clock to meet the residents' personal needs, supervised by program coordinator Gwen Melton, LPN.

Cathy Stathakis has accepted the position of manager of Hope Village, an independent living/assisted living senior community in Williamsburg, near Traverse City.

Stathakis has more than 13 years of senior housing sales and marketing experience in the senior housing industry. Prior to coming to Lutheran Social Services of Michigan in 2010, she served as divisional director of sales for the Franciscan Sisters of Chicago Service Corporation, supporting 18 senior living communities in six states. Previously, Stathakis worked in public relations and journalism, including nine years as senior staff writer and publicist for Interlochen Center for the Arts. As a news reporter, she received first-place honors from the National Federation of Press Women. Stathakis is a former president of Michigan Press Women. Stathakis and her husband, Stace, are longtime residents of Traverse City. She graduated from Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City and Central Michigan University.