About four months ago, I received a new job at Covenant Village of the Great Lakes just outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Covenant Village is a retirement/assisted living home for the elderly, including my grandmother. Great grandma Wilma is how I got the job; she actually found the manager of my department, told him all about me, and practically begged him to give me a job. Thanks Grandma, it worked.
So here I am, three months later, working as a waitress in the Petoskey Dining room, the restaurant in the residential living center. You would not believe how great these folks have it. There is also a salon, a pool, a sauna, a bistro, and a gym all in their home. And lucky me, I get to work right in the heart of it all, serving them each and every day.
Every morning I wake up, put on my sleek white button-down, striped tie, and my hideous apron and waltz off to work. Each morning I prepare myself for the hilarious stories that I know will be shared, as well as the sad ones that could come too. Serving people from ages 62 to 102 can be very unpredictable. One major reason being that death is so near for some people, and the closer you grow to your residents, the easier your heart breaks when one of your favorite regulars passes away. But it is almost funny how sometimes, death is the greatest teacher of life. Each and every person I have known has a beautiful and complex story to share. These people lived through the Great Depression and both World Wars and during some of the most racist years America has ever known. The unfortunate part is that once these people pass away, we will only have memories and stories of what those years were like.
They lived through some of the most monumental years in American history. I believe it is so important to spend the time to listen to their stories so that we can better our generation and those after ours. While it is sad that these people are coming to the end of their lives, it is so incredible to think of how much life these people have lived. It is hard to not be sad for them, but I take great comfort in knowing that this is all just a part of life. And in these last three months of my life working for CVGL, I have learned more about myself and the meaning of life than I have ever before.
One of the first lessons that I learned from work was during my first week after training. I was serving a sweet couple, The VanderClays. Mr. VanderClay was obviously a sly dog back in his 'glory days.' He is always asking the waitresses about their relationship status and if they ever want to grab a bite to eat after work. Right in front of his old wife, he is trying to put the moves on a few 18-year-old girls. He is always giving us a great laugh at the dinner table. Even though Mr. VanderClay can be a crazy old man, he and his wife are so very in love. Mrs. VanderClay is slowly becoming older and older, and with age, she has lost the ability to eat solid foods, so every single night, she eats a mashed sweet potato. But when I served them that night, we were serving a special pumpkin dessert, and it was just soft enough for her to eat it. And as I was taking her order, it seemed that nothing else on the menu was going to be soft enough for her to eat, so her husband turned to me and insisted that I serve his wife dessert before dinner. He didn't want her to watch him eat as she sat there waiting. And so I did just that. I brought out a beautifully made dessert for her and watched as her eyes light up so brightly. Her husband then turned to me and said, "Life is too short to not have dessert before dinner."
For some reason, this has always stuck with me, along with the calories that I have eaten while trying to enjoy my dessert before dinner. But in all seriousness, that is true. Life is too short to wait around for what brings you joy, whether it be a yummy pumpkin dessert or doing that one thing that you have always wanted to do but just haven't made the time.
So my first lesson that I would like to share with all of you is that life is too short. Eat and do what brings you joy when you want it, whether it be before dinner or after. Don't let life, and age, or the challenges it brings stop you from doing anything. There isn't enough time in the world to wait around.
