By Loretta Humble
I’ve got a really sweet little story to tell you. It involves 75 percent of Cedar Lake Nursing Home’s week day medication aides. You see, we have two med aides on days and two on evenings. Patti Sutton and Sara Templin work the day shift. Annette Pogue and Tessie Fowler work the evening shift. Patty has worked for Cedar Lake for 30 years. Sara has been with us for 7 years, and Annette for more than 3 years. Tessie has been with us for 4 years. She doesn’t have anything to do with this story, but she is a really nice person too, so I didn’t want to leave her out.
The first thing I need to tell you is that Patti is Sara’s mother-in-law. It wasn’t always that way. They were working together long before the romance and marriage happened, OR, before the baby Kenzie came along.
Now, back to Annette…..Annette loves being a Cedar Lake medication aide, though she has long dreamed of a day job. But being as how both Pattie and Sara were there first, and neither one seems anywhere near retirement, Annette’s prospects are pretty dim of having that happen at Cedar Lake for a long time. She did, however, get to spend a little time working days, when Sara took time off to have Kenzie. Then Sara came back to work and Annette had to go back to evenings. But she got her a new day job, too. A job she really loves. Every morning before Sara comes to work, she drops baby Kenzie off at Annette’s house. Then in the afternoon, when Annette comes to work, Kenzie comes with her, in time to get a few grandma hugs and kisses, and then go home with mommy. When you see them all together, you know what a lucky baby that is. She is adored by all of them. Looks like a family. And it is, more then I realized. Patti has worked for us since she was in high school, and her mom, Bernadine Goines worked for us way before that. I think she was already at Cedar Lake when we bought it, back in 1967. Well, Annette just recently discovered that Bernadine was the “Aunt Bernadine” who was married to her Uncle Walter. ( I don’t know if Patti knew this or not: as usual I’m writing this at the last minute, and I didn’t think to ask her when I had a chance.)
I must tell you, these guys aren’t the only ones benefitting by this arrangement. If you don’t think our nursing home residents don’t love seeing that baby every day, you are truly mistaken.
Maybe especially one resident. Annette is the daughter-in-law of my buddy, nursing home resident Betty Pogue, who, you may remember, modeled for that wonderful watercolor by Celene Terry, representing a life well lived. (Not that Betty is anywhere near through living her own yet, thank you.) And, by the way, that painting was shown in the Star Harbor Watercolorists Show and Sale, “For the Love of Art,” last week end. Which was an absolute hit, and if you didn’t take my advice and go to it, you made a big mistake and missed something great. I’ve been keeping Celene’s painting, as well as the two others in the series, to myself. When I get it back, I’m going to stop being so greedy, and find a place at the nursing home to display them all. I’ll let you know where they are so you can come by and admire them.
Even if you missed the art show.