Twenty-five years ago we started The Long Straw Club at our first assisted living community to fulfill an intention to provide a more meaningful and deeper spiritual and intellectual experience for our elders. In these early heady days of 2000, we tried a lot of different approaches, including reading Dante's Inferno, which became a standing-room-only event that Denver's Channel 9 showed up to tape one day.

To all of the wonderful residents, their families, our staff, and those who serve The Retreat at Church Ranch throughout the year, we wish you the very best of holiday seasons and a fantastic new year!

The retired and elderly people, in the absence of family, must seek assistance from care homes that administer medicines, look after personal care, dressing, housekeeping, laundry and bathing. 

Moving to an assisted living facility can feel intimidating, overwhelming, and just plain hard. It can mean going through decades of household items, saying goodbye to a family home, and the end of a chapter. It is also the beginning of an awesome new journey with new opportunities and new adventures waiting each day. Assisted living is a type of housing designed for people who need various levels of medical and personal care. Living spaces can be individual rooms, apartments, or shared quarters. The facilities generally provide a home-like setting and are physically designed to promote the resident’s independence.

With an ever-growing and diverse range of assisted living communities, determining the right assisted care home for your loved one can be time-consuming. But what should you look for?

As your loved ones age with time, it gets harder for them to manage with activities of daily living. Most of the time, you might feel guilty about being unavailable to help them with their daily chores. Moreover, owing to your professional duties, it may not be possible to provide the right amount of attention when they need it. 

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Moving to an assisted living facility can feel intimidating, overwhelming, and just plain hard. It can mean going through decades of household items, saying goodbye to a family home, and the end of a chapter. It is also is the beginning of an awesome new journey with new opportunities and new adventures waiting each day. Many assisted living communities today offer a continuum of care with services ranging from independent living, assistance with activities of daily living, and memory care. This allows residents to stay in a community, even if needs should change over time.

Finding assisted living options in Denver can be simple, with many of them providing a really good service. That said, you have to make sure you are working with people that are listening carefully to your needs and requirements and not just trying to fill an empty room. You have to make sure that the assisted living community you will choose can deliver on their promises of excellent care for your family member.

When finding the right assisted living location, make sure they meet the requirements that you have. Through the pandemic, it was challenging for people to get the assistance they needed because most did not plan on leaving their homes. There was enough evidence to believe that the older population would be the slowest to recover from the pandemic, so people did not want to take that chance. There were other changes they were planning as well and wanted to get through those as well.

When you start your search for assisted living for your aging loved one, you’re likely looking for a situation where they will be safe, well cared for, and happy for the rest of their life. However, choosing an assisted living facility can be an emotional decision, not to mention a consequential one. Even when you’re realistic about the need to find an assisted living facility, making the best match can be challenging.

Regulatory challenges can be daunting in any industry as there are enormous ramifications for failing to follow guidelines promptly. The assisted living business is no different, as the authorities set hundreds of regulatory demands to safeguard vulnerable patients.

"Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty

breadth of the universe;

“While those who become “olders” tend to contribute to the divisions in society, those who act as elders foster unity above self-interest and harmony over conflicts. Despite inevitable bodily aches and pains, genuine elders become the deepest source of life-affirming energy in a culture.“While those who become “olders” tend to contribute to the divisions in society, those who act as elders foster unity above self-interest and harmony over conflicts. Despite inevitable bodily aches and pains, genuine elders become the deepest source of life-affirming energy in a culture.

George E. Vaillant, MD. New York: Little, Brown & Co., 2002. Pp. 273. $14.99. ISBN 0-316-09007-7. Pb. Reviewed by Kathryn R. Ward and Geoffrey W. Sutton (Evangel University/Springfield, MO-REVIEW AMENDED BY RACR).

What are the key factors in successful aging? Dr. Vaillant, a noted psychiatrist, researcher, and director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development provides a lucid summary of the findings from the longest longitudinal study of adult development. He offers readers a comprehensive look at a wide range of data in the context of developmental theories. He supports the quantitative findings with salient participant examples that enhance his conclusions and make the work highly readable.

Most of our aged population plans to stay at home for as long as possible, despite changes in health, mobility, or cognition. Initially, this was a challenge, but with the expansion of home care services in recent years, it’s easy to help aging loved ones live independently at home. Many home care services provide a full range of safe and affordable solutions benefiting elderly loved ones while in a familiar environment. They ensure your loved ones receive timely support and care with an extra set of hands and dedicated medical services as needed. They also make sure your loved one is as comfortable as possible and essential chores around the house are taken care of.

The moment when, after many years of hard work and a long voyage you stand in the centre of your room, house, half-acre, square mile, island, country, knowing at last how you got there, and say, I own this,

“When I'm in turmoil, when I can't think, when I'm exhausted and afraid and feeling very, very alone, I go for walks. It's just one of those things I do. I walk and I walk and sooner or later something comes to me, something to make me feel less like jumping off a building.”
― Jim Butcher, Storm Front

“Hope and the future for me are not in lawns and cultivated fields, not in towns and cities, but in the impervious wild.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walking

In the fall of 1972, I moved to a small summer cabin deep in the northern Wisconsin forest, eight miles from the nearest town. The cabin had no electricity and no running water; when winter arrived, I had to thaw the hand pump in the backyard to get water. A 50-gallon drum buried in the yard served as my refrigerator.

In old age, the hard realities of life – childhood, teen angst, parenting, work, financial challenges – can transition into something calmer and softer, but no less real and valuable, the attainment of wisdom.

Wisdom is recognized, celebrated, and revered across all cultures. For many, if there is a purpose in achieving old age, attaining a state of wisdom is it.