Attending the Never Ending Planned Wedding in Kitchener, Ontario

My niece and her husband are a wonderful couple, perfectly matched for each other! They knew each other since their first year of university at McMaster Univeristy. It took S. a few tries before getting a date from my niece who was a dedicated student focusing on her univesrity study. However, once they started dating, there was no going back and the rest was history.

M. and S. had been planning their wedding since 2019. When they first announced their wedding date, June, 2020, everyone was excited for them, finally, they would tie the knot! A wedding shower, wedding parties, before and after were planned.

The wedding reception venue, a beautiful Victorian structure in the middle of Victoria Park, Kitchener, had been chosen to be where the wedding reception and dance would be. Our big fat familiy looked forward to this joyous family event with great anticipation as Mickey, (my niece's nickname) the youngest of all the fifteen cousins was to be wedded.

COVID hit us in March of 2020! The wedding shower in June was postponed twice. Mickey and S.'s wedding reception was postponed again and again amid the implementations of increasing COVID restrictions and protocols. We were disappointed but understood the gravity of the COVID situation.

But nothing could prevent two true lovers from being united in matrimony.

Mickey and S. did tie the knots in a private ceremony wintnessed by only their parents and their bridle party.

That was in August of 2020!

Finally, after being married and waiting for two years, Mickey and S. were able to enjoy their delayed wedding reception and shared their bliss with their families and friends coming from all over.

The venue at Victoria Park was as beautiful as we have imagined!

So was the bride! Mickey looked radiant and angelic in her low back wedding dress.

The catering dinner reception including melt in your mouth roast beef, BBQ chickens,fresh salads and delicious side dishes!

It was one of the most delicious weddding dinner we have had provided by a catering restaurant!

The desserts baked by the parents were fantastic and provided a personal touch to this joyful occasion! .

After dinner, it was time for some sharing by the wedding party.

Everyone enjoyed the heartfelt speeches from the parents of both the bride and groom. After dinner, it was time for some sharing by the wedding party. Everyone enjoyed the heartfelt speeches from the parents of both the bride and groom.

Then there was a really neat game that tested the knowleade of how well the new couple knew each other. The new couple each holding his/ her shoes in both hands trying to answer some questions about their new spouse. It was so much fun learning about the new couple!

After that, it was time for celebration and dancing!

What a joyous celebration and a memoriable event after being isolated from social gatherngs for more than two years.

To top it off, there was a poutine truck at around 10:30p.m. refuelling the guests and getting them ready for a night of dancing and polka!

We enjoyed the wedding and were grateful that our son from SF was able to fly home joining us for this celebrataion!

Mickey and S., may God bless your new life together as you have started a new chapter in your life! May you love, strengthen and support each other as you travel the journey of life together!

Love from your aunt, R.T. Waterloo, Ontario

Huge Unexplained Bruises on a Cancer Patient in an Ontario Long Term Care Home

My Mom is living her last days at a long term care home in Stouffville, Ontario. We try to be there as much as possible to be with her. There are three of us iving in the GTA area and we take turns visiting mom on a daily basis. I visited Mom the previous day and the next day was my sister’s turn to visit and feed my mom.

Last week my sister was alarmed as she noticed a huge bruise on her foot. My sister sent out a picture via What’s Hap. I was surprised because between the time I left mom at 7:15 to the time when my sister visited her, it was less than 24 hours and how she sustained a huge bruise like that, nobody knew. 

 The nurses and PSW could not give an explanation of how this occurred. Later, it was explained to us that she got this bruise as her skin is so easily bruised now. The simple action of her putting her one foot on top of the other had caused that. Really?

 I found that difficult to understand. With the shortage of nursing and medical staff in Ontario hospitals and long term care facilities, many of these institutions resort to hiring personal support workers and nursing staff from agencies which we feel do not provide adequate training for their personnel. What can we do when medical institutions are facing such acute shortage of staff?

The families of these residents and patients need to visit more often and become the caregivers to their loved ones. We do our parts. When we visit, we usually visit at meal time to coax her to eat. After mealtime, I would take her into the lounge, and we sat together looking outside and looked for the birds flying through the sky or the ducks swimming in the pond. The sight of the aviary animals delighted my mom. Most of the time, we just sat side by side, with me holding her hand. No words needed to be spoken. I love my mom and I was there for her. She knows it and she was content just feeling my presence.

My husband has been very supportive; he drives me to visit and play a game with Mom when she feels up to it.

She is experiencing more pain now as the cancer growth progresses. She is complaining about headaches, aches on her neck, shoulder, her left arm, leg. Tylenol was given to reduce her pain, but when that didn’t hurt, the last resort was Morphine. I noticed that after morphine was given, my mom started to sleep a lot. Before when I got there, she was happy and wanted to go with me, talking with me, singing and watching the videos I showed her. Now she is sleeping most of the time, hardly awakes.

 R.T. Toronto

Supporting My Mom at the End of Her Life Journey

Documenting my feeling with Mom as I walk with her last part of journey in her life I love my mom! My Mom has worked hard all her life and guess that’s where I have learned from her, Her work ethics. I remember her working really hard in HK trying to provide and raise my siblings, all seven of us together. It was not easy. Through no fault of her own, Mom was not well educated. But she was an intelligent and hardworking woman. Raising seven kids in the 1960's was not easy. My dad was running a small family bakery business and my mom was helping him a lot every day cooking meals for the workers as well as looking after the six of us. ( Dave, my younger brother was not yet born at the time.) Though Mom only received limited schooling, she always valued education and worked extremly hard to encourage all seven of us to further our education. She supported us 100% whenever one of us wanted to go to college. It was no easy task raising seven children and supporting them through college and university.

I was the first one in my family to attend unviersity. My mom never pressured me or told me what to study. She allowed me to be me and supported me 100% in the field I chose to study. While there were hardly any teaching jobs avaiable in the 1970's, Mom never discouragaed or dissuaded me from my passion of becoming a teacher. For this, I am grateful eternally.

I love my mom! Seeing her struggling with cancer has been hard for me. She has gone in a quality long term care home in Stouffville. However, she has been diagnosed with cancer which has progressed to the last stage. For the past couple of weeks, Mom’s arms and legs have swollen a lot, particularly her left arm. Her left hand has ballooned.Instead of her being up and eating in the dining room three times a day, this has to be reduced to only once a day at lunch as moving her in and out of bed has been increasingly difficult even with the aid of a lift by the personal support workers - PSW.

Mom is bruised so easily now. The three of us living in Toronto take turns to visit and feed my mom. The other day I stayed from 12pm to 7 p.m.

 I didn’t leave mom until she had finished dinner in the dining room and relaxed a little in the TV room. After the PSW changed her into her PJ and I tucked her in bed. I said good bye to her ensuring her that I would be back to see her in a few days.

She was holding my hand, didn’t want to let me go. This scene broke my heart. She needs us, her children, to be around her so badly at this time, the last stage of her life. 

 R.T. Toronto

Celebrating My Mom's 96the Birthday at a Long Term Care Home

My mom is a woman born in a humble abode at a rural village in China. Queen Elizabeth of England, born of blue blood, the sovereign head of state for United Kingdom and a host of other nations, do have something in common: They were both born in 1926 and are 96 years old this year! As said in Psalm 90:10 The measure of our life is seventy years; and if through strength it may be eighty years...

Our family wanted very much to mark and celebrate this milestone birthday with Mom. Though Canada has lifted some serious COVID restrcition, there were still many in place. Instead of having a big party in a restaurant, we compromised and asked Mom's long term nursing home for permission to hold a gathering in their party room. And we got the permission!

Phone calls were made and invitations were sent out to immediate families and Mom's children and fifteen grandchildren all over North American and beyond. Mom's health is failing. This could be her last birthday with us. A lot of her grandchildren realized this and they flew from all over to attend the birthday party:

E. from San Franscisco, Jen from Calgary, Pat from Florida, Ben from Halifax,

even Pa, our neighbour from Thunder Bay, flew to Toronto, especially for Mom's big event! It was a happy event involving many activities such as picking up out of town guests, hosting them and bringing them to the party.

Our siblings worked and planned together weeks before, and the day before to decorate the party room.

The birthday party day arrived ! We thank God that it was a sunny warm day in early April. What joy it was to see most of the family members, young and old all together under the same roof! Since our family has expanded and now we have a few little ones, we prepared a few activity stations to keep the children entertained so that they could have a good time just like their parents and uncles and aunts.

To make it easier for Mom, we planned a schedule so that she would be the last one to arrive to the party, just like the Queen. Dressed in a traditional purple Cheongsam, Mom was wheeled in by my older sister and her husband to the hall.

She was not feeling too well that day but she still managed to greet and have her pictures taken with everyone. Richard, her favourite personal service worker was in attendance and sang a couple of songs, providing entertainment to the guests.

It was a great day for Mom who could see her bign family all together celebrating her 96th birthday! We thank God that everything turned out well and things ran smoothly as planned! R.T. Stoufville, Ontario, Canada

Visiting My Mom at the Mon Sheong Long Term Care Home in Ontario

While it is possible to do so, I love visiting my mom at her long term nursing home not too far from Toronto.

It is great to see a big smile on Mom's face! While many seniors have been waiting for a long time to be admitted to a quality long term home, some people can be admitted without such prolonged waiting period. People like my mother, with debilitating illnesses such as stroke, heart attack, dimentia etc which have reduced them to a life of dependence, belong to another category.

Since these seniors are unable to care for themselves, they will be considered as priority cases and be admitted sooner.

We are grateful to Mon Sheong Long Term Care Centre providing my mom with a beautiful, excellent environemnt, good care team and fantastic recreation staff who would even do one on one daily visit when my mom was isolated during the COVID outbreak at the facility.

My sister created a chat group where we share our mom's health infomration daily. Our older brother has been in charge of our daily visiting schedule submitted to the Admin team on Thursdays. Things are not perfect, but we are glad that our mom is being looked after at a modern, top notch facility with a great staff!

Thank you, Mon Sheong ! R.T. Toronto Canada

Our Son was Home for the Holidays!

It was such exciting news! After nearly two years without seeing our son who works outside of Canada, was finaly coming home! We have been talking about it for weeks. E. was never too sure what the new COVID protocol would be for travel. It has been difficult for E. if he should book his ticket coming home amid the constant changes that the government on both side of the border has been making and updating constanly.

We talked about two weeks ago and he said might be he woud know by Nov. 15 ( 2021) but he didn;t call, so we thought he would not be able to travel. We went out of town on the Thursday where we learned that he would be coming home on Sunday morning! I wanted to decorate the house and give him a big welcome home but we would not be able to do it. I called my sister who was kind enough to buy the balloons and do it for us! After entertaining Erin' family in our Waterloo home, we left on Sunday morning to pick up E. from the airport.It was so good to see and hug our son again after almost two years! The last time we saw him was December 2019 when we spent a week in SF. How time has flown by! E. has gained weight, aged a little, but still has his youthful look.He has changed job, trading his seccure position from a high tech company to working in a more conservative industry. He also parted way with his long time roommate and found a new place to live. Now the two cats and his new room mate are keeping him company. It was wonderful having E. home for the week! The house was filled with laughter, youthful energy and interesting conversations at dinner table at meal times. I love cooking for our sons when they are home. We love hearing all the stories and interesting things happening in E.'s life. Catching up with what's going on and learning about E. success in his career made our time together special. We wished E. could have worked from home in Canada and stayed a bit longer than merely a week.

E. even made a special effort to visit my mom at the long term care home and played some games with her. Mom loved seeing her grandkids any time of the year!

Fortunately, a few weeks later, E. came home again for Christmas spending another week or so at home! By then, the CVOID cases number went up due to OMICON, Toronto and GTA area were in lockdown, cancelling all the Christmas and New Year celebrataions nad events. We were lucky that E. got to see grandma on his last visit as he was allowed to see her during the Christmas break at home.

We did a few things together before things were locked down again. We went out to see a movie together at the LIght Box in downtown Toronto, an activity which we have not done since 2020.

My sister invited us at her house for a Mah Jong lesson and game for E. as well.

We were grateful having him at home twice within a month after his absences from home since the beginning of the pandemic! R.T. Toronto, Canada 2021 Nov.

Saying Goodbye to Her Senior Apartment and Moving to a Long Term Care

Nov. 2021

Watching the recent Olympic games on TV brought back a lot of fond memories. I couldn't help but thought of my father who was an avid sports fan. My father loved basketball and he used to play on his interschool basketball team in HK. He loved watching sports of all kinds, often cheering loudly for his favourite teams, namely: the Toronto Maple Leaf hockey team and the Raptors basketball team. My parents used to live in a 4 bedroom house in the Toronto's east end. 

My mother was tirelessly in keeping the house clean and making it welcoming for her children and grandchildren. She enjoyed cooking for her grown children and grandkids. We were invited to my parents' house for dinner regularly, and mom always cooked up a storm preparing a feast for us as well as for the whole big fat family during special occasions such as Christmas and New Year. 

 After my father passed away in the same month as the first Olympic games were held in China in 2008, my mother lived by herself in the family house. She stayed in the house for a little while but that house became too big for her.  After selling her house and living with my brother for a short time, she moved into the St. Paul senior apartment. 

She had been living at St. Paul's Senior Apartment until she suffered a stroke which paralyzed the left side of her body. My mom and the family struggled with the decision where she should be after being released from the Rehab Centre. It was a difficult decision as we needed to consider many factors.

 After working with the social worker and the care team at Providence Rehab Centre, we finally decided that going to a long term care home would be the best for mom. Mom was fortunate enough to be accepted at a long term care home in Stouffville, though not our first choice.  Since Mom would be going to a long term care home, she needed to leave the senior apartment. To make the transition for her, we organized a small farewell party for mom so that she would have an opportunity to say good bye to her friends at St. Paul.

We made arrangement with a wheel chair transit company and brought Mom out of her nursing home. 

My brother called Mom's friends who all came to her apartment at around 3:00pm. Mom has been gone from her senior apartment since the stroke and this was the first time she was back at her old place.

 

Mom recognized her friends; they caught up with each other told each other the latest news about friends and church. I could see that Mom was emotional about leaving her old apartment. She was quiet, looking everywhere savouring the last moment at her own place. 

The transition from her senior apartment to the current nursing home must have overwhelming for Mom, as well as making decisions of what to keep and parting with her possessions accumulated over a life time. 

Mom's many friends' presence at the party helped lifted Mom's spirit. We chatted, took pictures.

We ordered a special cake and mom cut the cake and we served the food and drinks to her friends who stayed for a little while and said their good bye and best wishes to Mom. 

The small farewell party was a closure for Mom. She realized then that there was no going back to her old life at the senior apartment. 

She is moving on to a new chapter in her life at the long term care home.

One of the biggest fears of going into the home is that she would be left behind there and that no one would visit her. 

We have made a promise to Mom, no matter what the nursing home is, one of us will visit her each day so that she will always have visitors. We have made that promise to Mom and we will certainly keep that promise! 

 R.T. Toronto