There Really is Something Amazing About Grace

For the last six years of her life, my grandmother, Pauline Wyatt, was fortunate to not only move closer to her family, but also to become a Franklin, TN resident, living at Grace Healthcare on West Main Street.

When looking for a long term care facility, we had a list of requirements that were extremely important to us: safety, cleanliness, activities and most importantly, excellent health care.  Her physician, Dr. Kenneth Dodge, is kind, caring, and at Grace it seemed around the clock taking care of his many patients.  Not only was our grandmother lovingly cared by the staff at Grace Healthcare, and these healthcare professionals treated her like they would a member of their own family, but she was showered with love and attention from the community of one of the greatest small towns in America, Franklin, Tennessee.     When we visited different facilities, one thing we didn’t take into consideration was how the community supported the residents.

 

When we could come to visit her on Sunday afternoons, we would be her invited guests and treated to Sunday services by different church congregations and highly talented singing groups.  It wasn’t just on Sundays … she was treated to performances by a local ukulele band, students from Battle Ground Academy providing loving manicures, trolley rides to see the Christmas lights at Sunnyside and George Jones’ home, winner take all Bingo games,  Christmas presents from anonymous givers during the whole month of December, cheerful thinking of you cards from school students throughout the year.  While at Grace, she went to the prom, back to the 50s and was transformed into the Crocodile Hunter for Halloween.  She was touched by so much love, generosity and caring … and in turn, it touched our hearts tremendously. 
 
When faced with the decision to place a beloved member of your family into long term care and entrust that care and well-being with others, it’s these little unnoticed acts of kindness by the staff and the community that helps to ease your worry.  It emphasizes that although a hard decision you have done the right thing. 

After she left us I cleaned out her room and slowly closed the door for the last time, I was buoyed by the stack of cards and encouraging notes I had read from church congregations, students that I found in the top drawer of her dresser …. It squeezed my heart in the places where I missed her and made the last walk out the doors of Grace a little less sorrowful.  As I walked down the hall and stopped at the nurses’ station, I hugged those working on the night shift and tried to find the words to thank them for caring for her, for laughing with her and most importantly for loving her.   

In choosing Grace Healthcare on West Main, we didn’t realize we were also choosing the community of Franklin as a caregiver also, but it fortuitously turned out that way.  We discovered that there is something special about the people in this place; and there really is something amazing about Grace.