Interview with The Village of Winston Park family member, Randy Jantzi

First and foremost, the compassion that everybody has shown. Most of the workers know Mom and Dad’s names, and know Dad’s name. That means a lot to people of all ages. My parents, Mom was 90, and Dad was 93, when they moved in there. They were both still thinking at that point in their lives that they didn’t need help. That’s a difficult one because they did. Bringing them there and meeting Gillian and getting to tour the place eased their fears.

From that moment on, they’ve been helped, which they needed. I have noticed the difference in that. Dad was very determined all his life to provide for Mom and for himself. I noticed the last maybe three or four months, he’s been incredibly graceful with accepting the help now. He’s not trying to say he doesn’t need it.

If Dad was a little more active, I’m sure he’d enjoy playing croquet with the guys, or he’d enjoy the exercise machines and so on. He’s not as socially active in terms of activities, but he loves talking to people, and he loves when I take him with the wheelchair each day. So he gets to wheel by other people and still has some form of independence, I guess, in its own way, too.

When Mom died, I had him move down to the other end, which was a smaller room than they needed for the two of them. Then, when he moved into assisted living, it was handy. It’s almost as big as the retirement living. So, in assisted living, the rooms are still a fantastic size.

I’ve learned so much this past year about sundowning as well. It was something that I never thought would happen with Dad. But I find when the sun goes down, his mind starts to drift, and he still has times when he’s not sure where he is. But all I do is tell him to open his door and take a look at the name on his door. He’s got his name right on 171. So it makes him immediately key in again. Oh, yeah, I’m living here. It’s helpful

He’s starting to understand that he doesn’t have to be doing something all the time, and he can relax. He was go, go, go all his life. When he first moved in, this was an extension of that, and he was trying to do too much.

Now it’s fantastic. My aunt, Norma, is also living there. So Dad gets to see his sister every day, and she’s over 90 as well. We were able to put old family movies onto a stick, and now Dad and Aunt Norma get to watch movies from 75 or 80 years ago, from their childhood.

It’s peace of mind knowing I don’t have to worry about Dad drifting off somewhere or somebody taking advantage of him on the phone or any of those things anymore. When I leave there each day, I know that he’s in good hands. He’s eating his lunch, and the meals are fantastic.

I’ve never seen anyone raise their voice there, whether it was a resident or a staff worker, and that’s impressive. Everybody gets along. All of the residents get along really well. They all seem to look forward to lunch. I think the meals there are the best.

I would say the meals are as important, if not more so, than the social interaction, because they create a social interaction. Everybody on their way to lunch seems to be upbeat and looking forward to it.

All of the corridors or wings where people are living are named after families from the Kitchener-Waterloo area. There are paintings everywhere, from local painters on the walls. People aren’t growing up in little towns like Wellesley, like my parents or my dad, and coming there and feeling like it’s a city. It feels like home. It feels country in its own welcoming way for them.

I noticed John Sweeney was a member of Parliament there, and then he lived there, and the whole one area is dedicated to John. Even the owners are local, like the Schlegel family are local to this area, which is significant because Mom and Dad have known the Schlegel family probably 60 or 70 years.

If other people are in a situation similar to what I had, there are different options to look at when you’re thinking about moving your parents somewhere. What we just talked about with the country feel was as exceptional as anything. I think that made it so much easier for them to move in there. Some of the other places we visited were very sterile and felt like hospitals, whereas The Village of Winston Park doesn’t feel like that. Definitely visit a few homes before you decide.

A lot of times it’s not based on your first choice, even. We were blessed that we were able to get in there. A lot of people are on a long, long waiting list, and we weren’t.

The food matters. When you go to visit one of the places, ask the residents what they think of the food. Pay attention to the restaurant because that’s a big part of their life once they’re in retirement homes. We were able to spend two Christmases there with them for a Christmas dinner, and it was as good as anything.

It was my first choice. From the beginning, I was hoping that they’d like it when I brought them there. So, yeah, it was our first choice for sure.

My aunt and uncle had a similar situation with my mom and dad. One of them passed away in the first year they were there. But even when they passed away, these people were so helpful. Both my uncle Art and my mom were able to come back there to their rooms in palliative. This wasn’t hospice. It didn’t feel like that. Dad was still able to be with her, just like Aunt Norma was able to be with Uncle Art. They went the extra mile for that as well.

Other residents there were still able to come and visit. So Mom had people right up until the end. So did Uncle Art. That support is very big.

My parents never thought that they’d need help. They never looked ahead. They thought rainy day all through their working lives, putting money away, but they didn’t think it would come to this. Dad was covering for Mom a lot, and it was worrying them out. I knew they couldn’t manage on their own. I think moving there benefited Dad more than anything, because there wasn’t so much pressure anymore.

If they ever needed to move somewhere, I think it was either going to be Winston Park or Nithview Retirement Home. I had family members that had gone to both. For me, it made so much more sense at Winston Park. It’s bigger, and look at it now, it’s developing even more. Dad and I were just outside this morning doing a building inspection on the new five-storey long-term care unit they’re building, and it looks like it should.

We hired a lady who helped with the move, and she was the one who told Mom and Dad what to keep from their condo and what to bring down there with them. That was tough because when you’ve had something all your life or a routine all your life, you don’t want to change that. So they had to downsize. She was helpful with that part, so I didn’t have to be "the heavy" at all.

I would have done it a couple of years earlier for them. That’s my only regret about it, that they waited as long as they did, because it could have blown up pretty bad, and they could have ended up in a home that they didn’t choose or didn’t want to go to. I worried about that. Thank God it didn’t happen.

Touring places and then running into probably 10 or 15 people that Mom and Dad knew would have had my Mom and Dad more mentally prepared beforehand. That could have started 5 to 10 years ago. It should have been the discussions that we had. We never even had discussions about money over the years. I had no idea until they came there and I became their power of attorney what their assets were. They had no worries in the world. I don’t know why they wouldn’t have done it earlier.

What I would recommend to other families is that if you feel your parents are slipping a little bit, you can get a quality of life there that I don’t think people do when they’re trying to make it on their own, and they’re battling, hurting, or struggling and not staying afloat. When you have independent parents or parents who have always made their own decisions, it’s hard to influence them in the beginning to change their mindset.