Morning With Conchita

This past Saturday, I went to visit Conchita. Perfect timing, as I arrived, she was just finishing breakfast. We began the morning with a walk around the facility. Like I have mentioned before she is a very active 91 year old woman. During our walk Conchita decided to tell me about her childhood and why she ended up coming to America. She was born and raised in Mexico and came from a very wealthy family. She is a strong Roman Catholic and conveyed that her faith was extremely important to her and her family. She expressed to me that one of the reasons why her family had left Mexico at that time was because the President or leader of Mexico at that time closed all the Catholic churches. Churches were being vandalized and her family just couldn’t take it. So, they relocated to California where she spent the remainder of her childhood and the majority of her life. Throughout her life Conchita traveled all around the world. She attended UCLA and graduated with a Masters degree in Spanish. After marrying and having children, Conchita decided to become a professor. She started teaching Spanish in high school and then moved to teaching at colleges around the area.

After our walk, we returned to a sitting area outside her living quarters. Everyday Conchita likes to do her crossword puzzles. So, today we did a crossword puzzle today that was about famous poetry authors. I am still amazed every time I spend time with Conchita how together her memory still is at 91 years of age. She does have trouble repeating herself. After a while, you just get used to it. After the crossword puzzle was done (took a while to complete) I read to her from the book she was reading which was called “The Quiet Man.” After reading for a while, it was time for lunch. I was able to sit with Conchita and enjoy eating lunch with her. It was nice to see how friendly she is with all the other residents. Although, at Sunrise essentially everyone is a resident. However, I just don’t see it that way. I see everyone as one big family. Everyone is just so friendly and so nice to each other. After lunch, we did some gardening in a gardening class that she likes to attend. At the end of my time spent with Conchita, again she thanked me for spending so much time with her. One of the things, I really started to notice is that all the residents really enjoy having visitors and having new people around. When I was eating lunch, a group of older ladies wanted to know all about me and were very fascinated that I was there spending time with Conchita. It is nice to feel appreciated for something that is really so simple as giving up some free time.