Interview with Prince of Peace family member, Janet Hamilton

My mother-in-law has been there for about four or five months now, and we just really appreciate the friendliness and the openness they have been with her. She was very nervous moving in, and everyone just opened their hearts to her. They help her go down to dinner and to different events, and the activity coordinator comes to her room and gets her so that she can go and join in all sorts of different events. They’ve been so kind to her, and they’ve been good to us as well as a family.

My mother-in-law is 94, and she’s in fabulous shape. She walks a couple kilometers every day. But we were just so concerned about her living alone. It was a worry for all of us in the family. When we moved her to Prince of Peace, this pressure and this worry was removed from our shoulders. Making sure that she was eating right and didn’t have any problems cooking, or even when she went out for a walk, we were always concerned if something was going to happen to her. That concern has been lifted from all our shoulders, and we just feel now we can just be with her and not have to be caring for her on a daily basis.

They’ve got lots of activities. My mother-in-law plays the piano, and she’s a beautiful piano player, and so she sits and plays the piano and everyone comes around and gives her a little applause, which makes her feel wonderful. She now has her favorite chair that she sits in down in the lobby with some of the other residents. When we go there as a family, the residents are good to us, the staff is good to us, and so Lorene has just really settled in so easily in such a short period of time.

I can honestly say the gentleman that helped us get her in there, Charles, was just so good to us. Because we were busy searching for a place for her during COVID, he took the time to let us come in a couple times, view the place. We were able to help my mother-in-law get moved in totally with us as the family.

Right the minute we got there, her nurse was at the door making sure she knew all the information about medication. The activity director was at the door saying, “Let’s get you involved in what’s happening.” They introduced themselves right first day. Everybody was right there making sure we were settled. There was a nice sign on her door welcoming her to the community. Just little things like that really made things really easy.

Prince of Peace is kind of out in the country. It’s out just off the number one highway by Chestermere. My mother-in-law is a country girl, and so that’s what drew us to Prince of Peace. It has beautiful grounds, lots of walking trails, little birdhouses everywhere, benches to stop and take a breather, and little wetlands out there. So when you go for a walk, there’s lots of great things to see. Also, there are lots of paved pathways, not just gravel pathways.

That’s been great for her because she loves to walk. They have a community center attached to the building with different activities in it. Like I say, they’ve got a piano for her to play, they’ve got bingo night, they’ve got all sorts of game nights, and she participates in just about all of them.

We got her a one-bedroom, and it’s quite large. In her master bedroom, we’ve even put her small china cabinet with all her treasures in there and a nice big dresser. She’s got a queen-size bed. Then she’s got room in her main living area for a little loveseat, two chairs, and a kitchen table. She overlooks a schoolyard. She gets to watch the kids play at recess, which is really nice because she was a teacher, an ex-teacher. Then she’s got a huge storage closet that we put a big cabinet in there to put all her linens and towels and supplies, those kinds of things. Some of the people in the residence make it into like a little office. It’s that big.

Lorene was always very social, very involved in her community. She spent a lot of time with my father-in-law volunteering for the city, doing all sorts of events. At her old residence, she was in a seniors’ apartment building with no assisted living, no care, no meals. Especially during COVID, it was so lonely and so heartbreaking for her because she couldn’t get out, or she needed someone to be with her at all times. Even just small tasks, we had to have someone with her at all times.

Now we know she’s being cared for. We know that people are involving her, engaging her, and doing special things for her. Like I said, having her play the piano, those things make such a difference because she was so lonely, and she always said, “All I’ve got is four walls around me.”

Now she doesn’t say that anymore. She’s totally part of this community, and her new go-to statement is, “I have nothing to complain about.” She’s just way happier. She looks forward to the activities, she gets up in the morning, she likes the routine, and she knows where the dining room is. She has made lots of friends, and she’s got lots to talk about. She is just a different person. She’s happy, happy all the time we go to see her. As a family, that’s what we wanted for her.

My husband’s family is six boys and one girl, and my sister-in-law doesn’t live in town. I don’t know, boys don’t seem to do the caregiving. As a daughter-in-law, I took over most of that care. Making sure there’s groceries, making sure all her doctor’s appointments, it was all very, very time consuming. I love my mother-in-law, but it was taking an awful lot of my time, and I don’t know that I was the best at it. I think I did the best I could.

Now we have people that are professionals that look after her medication, that look after her well-being. They call us often. Today they called me saying they’re not sure the hearing aid is working. So now we know we don’t have to worry that she hasn’t been hearing for six months.

So much worry is away from us. While she was in her own residence, she lost her hearing aid five times. Five times. They’re so super expensive. We kept replacing them. Since she’s been at Prince of Peace, we have not lost them once because they help her with that. That’s such a relief for the family because if she can’t hear, she can’t communicate. That was major for us.

Because it’s out in the country, or just outside of Calgary, we just feel that a lot of people that are there are also from the country and just have those same interests in farming and gardening and birds and nature.

The value there is everybody knows who you are. Every single person, as you walk by in the hallway, they know who Lorene is. They acknowledge us when we come in too. “Oh, that’s your mother who plays the piano.” “That’s your mother who we have dinner with.” That’s so important to us, that that’s her home now. I think if you were interviewing her, she would say the exact same thing. That’s her home.

Prince of Peace helped make the move so easy. They suggested a mover. She was lovely. She came in with two other staff, packed us up totally. They did all the packing. We didn’t even pack. They went in and said, she doesn’t need all these glasses, we’ll take four. She doesn’t need all these coffee cups, we’ll take four. They helped pack her clothing.

When we took Lorene out for lunch, and when we got back, her apartment was set up. They understood it was going to be stressful. They tried to lay the furniture as close to the same way as it was in her previous apartment just to make that easy for her. Those little things, you know: That mover understood what a senior needed, and Prince of Peace recommended them.

When we got to Prince of Peace, everything was waiting for us. The elevator was booked, the staff was waiting for us. They were not surprised to see us. They were ready to help with anything they could help with. They were knocking on the door the minute we walked in the room. It was perfect. Lorene felt special by that. She felt like they were excited to see her, that she was going to be part of this.

Don’t look at the age of the building. Look at the care you’re getting, the surroundings, and the type of room. We have lots of new buildings in Calgary, but depending on your loved one, do they want to walk to a mall, or do they want to get out? Are there hills? Are there pathways? We looked at some beautiful brand-new buildings, but we just knew it wasn’t going to work for my mother-in-law. Going for a walk. Don’t count a building out because it’s 30 years old or 40 years old.

Part of it was the situation out in the country with really beautiful grounds surrounding it, as well as the size of the residence. We chose a residence with only about 100 to 125 people in it. We didn’t want my mother-in-law to get lost in the residence.

We talked to everybody we knew, friends and family. Knowing anybody that went to any location, recommendations were really a big part of how we made our decision.

Overall with Prince of Peace, it was the grounds and the location of the building. Pretty much the size of the room. The room was beautiful. The views out the window were beautiful. It was important that they had that piano, that they had some outside walking trails, that our mother would be safe in, that there wouldn’t be a chance of getting lost or anything like that. So those were our big decision makers.

She looks onto an elementary school playground, and I think she was an elementary school teacher in her day, a long time ago. She just loves the idea of seeing the kids playing in the playground during recess and lunch breaks.

It’s got some nice tree pathways, some gravel pathways. It’s got a little wetland that lots of birds come to, lots of birdhouses, benches if you’re going for a walk, lots of benches so you can stop along the way. They also even have a little community garden because they have some individual houses there as well. There are some nice little gardens to look at. Lots of flowers.

The outside of the building, they have beautiful flowers that you can help garden a little bit at waist height, which is very helpful. The grounds are very, very beautiful.

The movers we hired were extremely awesome. We took my mother-in-law out for coffee in the morning so she wasn’t part of the move at all. We tried to keep her stress level as much as possible out of the picture. She went out for coffee and out for lunch, and we started the packing. The movers did most of the packing for her. We were there. My other brother-in-law took her out. When she then came home for dinner, she came home to Prince of Peace to a totally set up apartment.

We might have moved my mother-in-law a bit sooner because we didn’t realize how happy she was going to be. We did a really, really extensive search before we found the place. If I had had a little insight, I wouldn’t have searched so hard because Prince of Peace was the first place we went to. In the end, after 20 different places, we went right back to Prince of Peace.