Bringing Mom out for Her First Dim Sum Lunch After Her Stroke

One of the major setbacks for our family during the COVID 19 pandemic has been my mom’s illness. My 95 year old mom suffered a serious stroke soon after the celebration of her 95 year old online celebration.

 

 She is in rehab at the Providence Rehab Centre   currently trying to regain some mobility and   independence she has enjoyed before her stroke.

Due to COVID restrictions, visiting my mom has not been easy as there are many protocols to follow and the number of visitors are restricted. 

My siblings and I have been trying our best to visit Mom and have made a schedule so that at least one

of us visits her every day of the week for a couple of hours.

At her rehab centre, only three visitors are allowed to be on the visitor list, therefore my other siblings and Mom’s grandchildren are not allowed to visit.

 After seeing the three of us for a couple of months, Mom missed her other children. She talked about seeing all of us together. Since not all our siblings live in the greater Toronto area, getting a date when everyone could be together needed much coordination. 

We needed to consider and accomplish the following tasks in order to take Mom out for a lunch: 

 1. Transportation - Mom is not mobile at all and we needed to arrange a wheel chair transport to take her to the restaurant and back to the rehab centre. 

 2. A day pass - We needed to apply and get approval from the Rehab Centre

 3. An outdoor patio restaurant that could sit 8- 10 people. 

 4. A date and time that would be good for everyone involved, including our of town siblings.

It took almost two weeks of intensive work to arrange all of the above. Finally, the day of our family dim sum lunch arrived!

How exciting! I was eager to see Mom’s happy face when seeing all of her children for the first time in a long while. Therefore, I made sure that we arrived at the restaurant way ahead of our scheduled lunch. 

 The lunch was at Shangri La Restaurant in Richmond Hill, Ontario. It had a nice garden with a gazebo, a spacious outdoor dining space surrounded by a lot of green space. The tables were far apart in keeping with the COVID protocol.

 It was exciting seeing Mom in a wheelchair arriving to the restaurant!

Mom was happy and gave us her thumbs up!!!

Seeing all her children together for the first time in almost two yeas made her very happy. She was in a good spirit!

The fact that she was able to enjoy a dim sum lunch in almost two years at a restaurant with all her children made her day! It made our day too! 

We had not been together for almost 24 months. There was a lot of catching up to do! Though Mom was still recovering from her stroke and her memory has been severely affected, she was able to recognize and name each one of her children plus some of their spouses present that afternoon.

 It was a good indicator that Mom was recovering though slowly. It was a joyful event! All the planning and coordination were worth it! 

In fact, Mom and us enjoyed the dim sum lunch so much that we did again after this one before the cold weather set in and the COVID lockdown happened again.

 R.T.

 Richmond Hill, Ontario