{"id":405,"date":"2011-05-14T15:51:09","date_gmt":"2011-05-14T22:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/?p=405"},"modified":"2011-08-13T17:22:45","modified_gmt":"2011-08-14T00:22:45","slug":"the-winter-of-her-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2011\/uncategorized\/the-winter-of-her-life\/","title":{"rendered":"The Winter of Her Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This isn’t the kind of photo you expect at this time of year, but I just returned from visiting my 95 yr. old mother in her personal care home and it reflects the mood of many who live there. Don’t get me wrong, my visit was delightful, but I can’t help feeling it’s all wrong.<\/p>\n

In my zeal to live a more adventurous life and enjoy a warmer climate, my husband and I moved our young family to the west coast decades ago. We had decided the winters in Winnipeg were too brutal. Besides, my fingertips could not stand another icy challenge. But my mother and father remained. They did not follow, although they had mumbled about the possibility.<\/p>\n

And despite my pleas and encouragement over the years, they stayed where they had settled. Now, my mother sits with other elderly staring at one another or the walls or her flat screen TV. I call her twice a day and see her quarterly. It’s not perfect,\u00a0 but somehow we manage.<\/p>\n

In years past, the elderly lived at home. Some still do either with home care or with their families. But with the aged living longer on average, the solution is often to warehouse them. In my mother’s home, the care is superb, even though the surroundings seem grim. Not like home at all. The hallways remind me of a hospital. There are promises to make it more home-like, but money is tight. In her room, we’ve tried to recreate the decor she had in her own place. It’s a challenge, given that you’re not allowed to re-paint the walls or change the drapery. Still, my mother isn’t a complainer and feels she is being treated like a queen. I guess, it’s because she was the self-sacrificer, the one who labored the hardest for her family.\u00a0 She appreciates being waited upon now. She’s a treasure. It’s just a shame our family treasure is so far away.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This isn’t the kind of photo you expect at this time of year, but I just returned from visiting my 95 yr. old mother in her personal care home and… <\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[88,1],"tags":[101,102,100],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-uncategorized","tag-elderly","tag-home-care","tag-personal-care-home"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LuVB-6x","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":203,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2011\/writing\/stories\/","url_meta":{"origin":405,"position":0},"title":"My Mother’s Stories","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"10 \u0411\u0435\u0440\u0435\u0437\u043d\u044f, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm visiting my 95 year old mother in a personal care home. My mother was a wonderful storyteller but now her mind is failing.\u00a0 She can no longer remember details, but when I mention a slice of a narrative she gave me many years ago, her mind clicks in and\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Life"","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":210,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2011\/life\/endings\/","url_meta":{"origin":405,"position":1},"title":"Endings","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"14 \u0411\u0435\u0440\u0435\u0437\u043d\u044f, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"My visit to my mother in the personal care home is ending,\u00a0 but the memories of our visit will carry me until the next time, if there is one.\u00a0 She is 95 and we are both blessed that her mind is still remarkably intact.\u00a0 There are lapses, but given her\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Life"","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1343,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2013\/life\/a-generous-life\/","url_meta":{"origin":405,"position":2},"title":"A Generous Life","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"29 \u0411\u0435\u0440\u0435\u0437\u043d\u044f, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"It\u2019s been a tough week. I lost a dear cousin to cancer a week ago. It happened so fast, too fast. My earliest memories of my cousin, Nina, are of a girl with brown pigtails, herding the cows on a farm near Stonewall, Manitoba. Her two dogs dancing around her\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Life"","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"sunset","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/sunset-300x197.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7046,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2025\/writing\/love-and-pain\/","url_meta":{"origin":405,"position":3},"title":"Love and Pain","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"5 \u041b\u0438\u0441\u0442\u043e\u043f\u0430\u0434\u0430, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Love and pain seem to go together. Taylor Swift and Patsy Cline hit the top of the music charts with songs about heartbreak. Everyone needs love and though we've heard these songs and stories about love going wrong, we keep searching for it anyway; we want to find the right\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Hearts-and-Pages3.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Hearts-and-Pages3.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Hearts-and-Pages3.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Hearts-and-Pages3.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":734,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2011\/life\/it-wasnt-supposed-to-be-like-that\/","url_meta":{"origin":405,"position":4},"title":"It Wasn’t Supposed To Be Like That","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"3 \u041b\u0438\u0441\u0442\u043e\u043f\u0430\u0434\u0430, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I have this void in my life right now. My mother passed away on Oct. 27th at the age of 96. I had a habit of calling her twice a day, and visiting her four times a year. I live on the west coast of Canada, she lived in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Life"","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Mom-207x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1102,"url":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/2012\/writing\/writing-family-history\/","url_meta":{"origin":405,"position":5},"title":"Writing Family History","author":"Diana Stevan","date":"5 \u0416\u043e\u0432\u0442\u043d\u044f, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019m back to working on my baba\u2019s \u00a0story, NO TIME FOR TEARS, which is essentially an immigrant\u2019s story. \u00a0It\u2019ll be published as a novel, as I\u2019ve had to do a lot of research to fill in the blanks. \u00a0Because she lived behind the Iron Curtain, in Eastern Europe, information has\u2026","rel":"","context":"\u0423 "Life"","block_context":{"text":"Life","link":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/category\/life\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.dianastevan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/P1090283-300x297.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dianastevan.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}