Author Archives: Author Julie Seedorf

About Author Julie Seedorf

As human beings, we are always a work in progress. From birth to death we live, hurt, laugh, cry, feel, and with all of those emotions we grow as people, as family members, and as friends. I'm a dreamer and feel blessed to have the opportunity in my writing to pass those dreams on to others. I believe you are never too old to dream and to turn those dreams into a creative endeavor.” I live in rural Minnesota and am a wife, mother, and grandmother. Throughout my life I have had many careers or should I say opportunities at jobs where I have learned different skills such as working as a waitress, nursing home activities person, office manager, and finally a computer repair person eventually owning her own computer sales and repair business. Add my volunteer activities such as Sunday School Teacher and SADD advisor and more and it's been a full life. I never forgot my love of writing and quit my computer business in 2012 after signing a contract with Cozy Cat Press for Granny Hooks A Crook, the first book in my Fuchsia, Minnesota Series. I currentlyntly have written nine cozy mysteries, three children’s books, participated in three group anthologies or mysteries, and write three blogs about various subjects.

Senior Snarking

Featured

Posted on by
1

Laying low. Being silent. Reflecting. Crabbing. Yes, I have tried all those various ways of being lately. It’s been two years the end of this month since we moved from our home, first into independent living for both of us, then memory care for Mark and HUD independent living for me. I’ve learned so much about aging and care. My moods have been euphoric, depressing to the point of falling apart, sad at the passing of my husband, and anger at rules that are and are not enforced,and happy for my new environment and friends.

One of the hardest lessons is learning to live in an apartment for the first time in buildings for seniors that have many rules which call for adjustments in the way we were used to living.

It’s no secret that in my first abode, first try at senior living, we were always at odds with management because of mistakes in billing and care. However as residents we were not restricted with many things we could or could not do which affected our freedom of living.

I love where I live now. My second senior housing try. The campus and my independent living apartment are very beautiful and comfy, however I am learning that as a resident there are many more restrictions. I and other residents have a hard time adhering to rules. Remember teenage years when the don’t always turned into…I want to try that?

It’s very hard for older people who have had to leave their homes, their communities and the independence they had, to find their world smaller and their choices restricted. Younger managers don’t always understand their role in making sure seniors do not feel threatened by the penalty for a misstep in not following what seems to seniors, silly and frivolous restrictions. Considering everything else seniors may be encountering physically an emotionally, being stressed about getting written up should not be happening. Staff is not always trained to patiently work and understand the way problems are addressed whcih makes a difference in older people’s reactions to having their boundaries changed when it comes to living their lives. If seniors are talked down to, treated like children and addressed by raised voices they feel threatened and disrespected and not being heard. You’ve read the articles on senior citizens not being seen as viable people that still have wisdom and years of living experience that would benefit being listened to. Many managers do not know that the subject being complained about is not necessarily the problem, but the restriction is about another choice being taken away. The language and tone about which it is addressed matters.

Seniors in senior housing, especially low income senior housing, should not have to feel afraid to speak up because of repercussions, but they do. Plus, they are afraid of losing their home if HUD funding changes.

If it were not for HUD housing many elderly tenants would have no home and it is a worry that is real. Elderly tenants that live in HUD housing have worked hard all their life, but have no retirement savings as benefits were not a available to them, or they come from an abusive household, or their medical bills ate up everything they have. Some make just enough from Social Security to not qualify for help such as Medicaid, but do not make enough to pay the rents, groceries and health care.

And so we argue about things that to the younger generation doesn’t matter, such as the ability to move tables around in the dining room, changing the arrangement of them according to our activities and groups that might want to have their own conversations. Or the ability to have our small kitchen in our dining/community room open so on weekends we don’t have to bring pots of coffee down from our apartments to serve our afternoon coffee crowd. We argue over communication when we feel we are being patronized, dismissed and not heard. Our opinions don’t matter to the running of our home when we have decades of wisdom that might make a difference to the peacefulness of community. We want an environment that is well taken care of so when visitors arrive they don’t see the stuffing in the dining room chairs or the cracks in patio furniture that says we are not the wealthy side of the community.

I learned myself that asking questions over and over because of not getting a satisfactory answer, or expressing concern over management, can get you written up and result in a conversation with the manager and upper level staff. These things are destroying the peaceful atmosphere. It’s felt like being called into the principal’s office in high school, which never happened to me. It took 73 years to be called to the office. I learned recording a resident meeting so we have minutes is a no-no because I didn’t inform them I was doing it, though those at my table knew. I honestly didn’t know the rules of recording a community meeting. But I now know what can and can’t be done so I can do better

It is hard for all of us that haven’t lived with these restrictions in our home to get used to having them at our age. However, I understand to have a peaceful environment rules are needed and entities may impose them so we don’t have problems.

Those are the hard parts, but these are the blessings. I have eleven neighbors on our floor and we help each other out. We have fun, we watch out for one another and we don’t ever have to be lonely. We just have to step outside our door. Add the other four floors and we are a family. I’ve met so many good people and I have learned about courage from those whose lives are hard and filled with pain and disability. Yes, residents have squabbles with each other. Who doesn’t have issues even in a family environment.

I live in a beautiful friendly community that keeps me busy and interested. I have met people of different races, religion and genders that have given me growth in acceptance of those who are different than me. I didn’t want to move those years ago but it was necessary for my husband’s care, and yet it’s one of the best experiences of my life. The people we met, the places we’ve lived, learning about hospice and feeling enveloped by family and friends through my husband’s death. God does know what he’s doing. We have to trust there is a plan. Now I just need to learn to follow the rules. You know they say curiosity killed the cat. I don’t want to use up my nine lives, plus detention is no fun at my age.

Ending The Old—Beginning the New

Featured

Posted on by
1

It’s been a rough and tough year in my life. 2023 will go down in my mind as the most difficult year I have experienced. It’s been a year full of blessings, stuffed with caring and joy.

You might think those two statements can’t possibly both stand side by side and be true.

2023 will be marked as the year I became a widow. After years of confusion and pain and memory loss for my husband, God chose to take him home and give him peace from the PTSD he lived with because of the Vietnam War, from the pain he suffered from his back and stomach, and from the anguish he felt when he realized his mind was playing tricks on him, giving him hallucinations and fear at what was happening with his memory.

Watching someone you love suffer, blaming yourself for not doing enough, or not knowing what to do as a spouse and caregiver, destroys any semblance of sanity. The family, children, no matter their age, suffer too, and their feelings get overlooked, especially by the caregiver because the caregivers can’t get outside of their grief to help kids sort through what’s happening to their dad or mother.

And then… deep breath… there are the friends and other family members who God also chose to bring home to him, leaving us devastated at the emptiness of those people being gone.

Worst year of our lives.

The blessings. When you are reeling from the pain, the most surprising events happen. New friends pop up to lift you up, carry you and lead you through the darkness. Old friends never let you go and surround you with prayers, and knowing you so well, they sense what you need when you didn’t know you needed it.

Extended family, though separated by miles or community, come together, sharing your pain but offering memories and hope for the future by letting you know that family is forever.

The dark road you are on is lit by the kindness of others.

My road has included stops I never wanted to make, but looking back I am thankful the roadblocks included these stops. I didn’t want to sell my home and leave my community of 62 years. I didn’t want to move my husband to memory care, and I didn’t want to move again this past year to a new place and another community. However, I did. I learned lessons I never would have learned had I stayed stuck in my old life.

I met people that expanded my world. I learned a handicap and age does not have to define your life. Courageous, beautiful souls live in bodies twisted from life. They let their spirit define them.

I learned to look into people’s eyes and souls and not judge them by race or gender or age. Their hearts beat the same as mine.

I learned to look beneath the glitz of our materialistic world and see those that are missed and forgotten. Our neighbors may be one paycheck or social security check away from homelessness or food insecurity. It’s easy to judge when you haven’t experienced it.

I learned our health care system and assisted living and memory care need change so nurses and aides aren’t set up to fail by lack of training, horrible workloads and hours, because these facilities only have to staff the bare minimum. Regulations mandating enough staff are sadly lacking. Facilities shortchange staff on wages so it’s hard to be competitive with other careers. Management always seem to be compensated. Elder abuse is alive and well propagated by money and greed.

I learned even though you pay over $4000 for a room in memory care, you have to provide your own toilet paper. That may seem like a small thing but those small things add up. Not only do you pay the price for the empty room, you must provide furniture, essentials plus every little thing staff does for you, including picking you up off the floor has a charge. I learned that in assisted living, if you fall no one can help you up or give you CPR, that includes staff. You have to call 911. I learned to ask about details such as this when moving in. Not all facilities do this but many for profit establishments do.

I may not have wanted to educate myself on any of these things, however, I would have missed meeting the people that changed my life for the better, teaching me that you can smile and play during the pain of whatever situation you are in. Their quiet courage and faith moved me beyond words

I love where I now live, city and building. My building mates enrich my life. I see my family often. And it’s a new year full of possibilities. I have a new slogan, “Be careful what you don’t wish for.”

I did make a few resolutions I know I can keep. I am going to hang my toilet paper any way I choose. I don’t have to make my bed, because then I don’t mess it up at nap time. I can eat crackers in bed. I’m the only one that sleeps there and the crumbs will be gone when I wash my sheets. My clothes will be clean, but I see no need to fold my underwear, you can’t see those wrinkles. And if I choose to throw my jeans in the drawer unfolded after washing them, when I wear them, I will be coordinated, wrinkle coordinated. My wrinkled jeans will match my face.

It’s a new year. I’m going to try and learn from the old, keep the lessons I experienced close and hope I am up to the task of what I encounter in 2024.

Life is not a fairytale. It is mixed with dreams, sorrows, love, defeat, peace and pain. We can get through it if we rely on each other and lift someone up when they can’t go on, and let someone lift us up when we are buried by the facts of life. And if we are lucky, somewhere in that mix we can hold on to a tiny piece of a fairytale, allowing us to keep on dreaming and growing by our experiences

Happy New Year!

A little postscript: I was informed one of those courageous people I mentioned died. I knew her as Dee Dee. My heart is sad but I will go on always remembering her kindness that she showed my husaband and I. No matter his problems, she always made him feel valued and cared about. The sense of humor they shared together made his last months memorable. The quiet faith she and her husband shared with us at every nightly meal will stay in my heart forever. Look beyond the disability and find the heart. Dee Dee showed us hers. Rest in Peace Dee.

Grief Doesn’t Have A Plot

Featured

Posted on by
Reply

Many of you might not know I was a columnist for many years with a column called Something About Nothing in the Albert Lea Tribune. I came across this today as I was looking for columns to include in a book for the future. Though it is not a holiday it seemed appropriate for my life today. I also used it for my TikTok post. I hope it moves you and helps if you are grieving.

SOMETHING ABOUT NOTHING
by Julie Seedorf © November 2017

Grief doesn’t have a plot. It isn’t smooth. There is no beginning and middle and end. Ann Hood

Grief is strange. It pops up when you least expect it, blotting out the sunshine and carrying you back into a sea of sadness. It happened to me this week starting with an ache in my heart. I missed my mother. I wanted to walk out of my house and across town and visit her in her home and sit by the floor furnace and talk. I didn’t have any particular subject in mind. I was missing our mother-daughter time by that furnace grate. It has been fifteen or more years since we were able to spend time together. I am not one to remember death dates for anyone. I prefer to remember life dates such as birthdays. I can’t tell you what year she died.  Just when I think I am over her death, like a jack-in-the-box, the sharp twinge of grief pops up taking over my body. It is an ache in my heart which feels as if a part of it is missing.

Perhaps it is the time of the year, November when holiday cheer is rife but for many, sadness overtakes the joy and doesn’t let them savor the holidays.

We don’t only grieve for those we lost to death. We feel loss for many different reasons. For me, I feel the loss of a special family member who because of divorce is no longer a part of my life anymore. Love doesn’t stop because of a divorce. I feel loss for a special dog that is missing from my home because a former illness would no longer let me care for him. I feel loss for a way of life when jobs went away and nothing replaced them so we had to adjust to the simpler way of living. I felt loss when two of my best friends moved away and we could no longer get together at the spur of a moment. Loss came through a broken leg, a broken foot and an illness which laid me low, followed by depression and anxiety because of it. ‘

Loss can be felt deeply at holidays when families are split, or our childhood families are no longer living, or distance makes it hard for families to be together when togetherness is needed the most.

We all grieve for different reasons and our memories and emotions are unique to each of us. It doesn’t have to be a big event to make us feel those twinges of sadness. It can be an outside force such as losing a favorite restaurant that holds memories or a favorite pair of shoes which marked a special occasion. Feeling the emotions of grief is not relegated to certain rules or people or places.

Some people grieve in silence and others grieve loudly. Our feelings, that twinge in our hearts show up when we least expect it. It is what we choose to do with that ache that makes the difference.

Occasionally I will sit with it and feel all I need to feel. Other times I need to ask for help to find a solution so it doesn’t pull me under. Or I work on gratitude. There is so much to be thankful for in each and every part of the things that made my heart break.

I had a wonderful mother and accepting our relationship was occasionally oil and water doesn’t negate that thankfulness. She and my father taught me right from wrong. My family had a wonderful person in our lives and this person gave us beautiful grandchildren. I will be forever thankful for that person.  Sam, my pooch, gave me unconditional love when I was sick and he comforted me through it. Now he is happy with children who make him jump and play. We made it through job loss and we came out stronger. My friends are a phone call away. I am grateful they accepted me as I am. How lucky I was to have friendships like that in my lifetime. Through illness I learned to be thankful for every day and I found I had a strength I didn’t know I had.

The best advice when I was laid low six years ago was from my Pastor daughter. She pointed out I hadn’t taken time to grieve all the loss I felt in my life the former five years. I was the energizer bunny through it all. She told me to take the time to grieve, to rest and to get stronger. Feeling someone cared made all the difference in the world for me.

Holidays are coming and I am thankful I have the memories I do of family holidays and though families change we are still a family, only evolving.

You might ask why I am sharing these things with you. Grief is a sad subject. I can’t find anything funny to say about it. I decided to touch on this subject because in this chaotic world people are grieving about their lives and feeling guilty for having an ache in their hearts at what should be a joyous time. I want others to know they are not alone.

I don’t have answers. I know what works and doesn’t work for me. I know the grief I feel never goes away, but joy fills more places in my heart than sadness. I want to remember both because it is what made my life mine.

If the holidays are a sad time for you or if your emotions are more than you can handle please reach out to social services, your medical doctor, your church pastor or priest or a valued friend.  It is in sharing that caring hearts connect.