Dear Editor,
My name is Marlo, and I work at Mascoma Bank as the assistant branch manager. I also serve on the chamber of commerce board and the Turning Point Recovery Center Board. I take a lot of pride in helping and serving our community.
I write to you with a rather heavy emotional heart. My father, David, has lived with me since my mother passed away in 2016. He worked hard his whole life and provided for our family very well. Unfortunately, about three years ago, he was diagnosed with vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s. We had been able to manage living with this up until about eight months ago. It is then I realized my father needed additional structured, daily care that I personally could not provide him while maintaining my full-time job here in town. At the time, my neighbor was in a hospice situation, and as I went to visit him and spend time with him, I met Jana. Jana works at the Springfield Adult Day Center, and after chatting with her while my dear neighbor prepared to pass this life, she shared with me about the wonderful adult day center in town for my father. I then met Shelly, the director, at a chamber mixer and chatted with her about the center and the provided resources. I was nervous and unsure to try, but I went over to the center and gathered the right paperwork and enrolled him in January of 2025. My father’s doctors have supported and highly recommended this service and this center as well for his wellbeing and care. It was and has been the perfect solution, and at the perfect time for him.
Since then, my father has had a reason to wake up, a daily purpose, he has something to look forward to, and he is no longer isolated while I work. He is socializing, and, most importantly, he is being cared for by incredible, loving people who have made their jobs a way of life to serve others and to care for others. To care for a generation that has been lost because of their aging physical and mental ailments. When someone suffers from this horrific disease, having a regular, consistent schedule with consistent staff and a nurturing environment is the absolute best medicine. This is what the Springfield Adult Day Center has provided my father, along with professional, genuine love and care that allows for him to maintain dignity.
Each day I ask my father, “How was your day?” Every day he says, “It was great, I had a lot of fun.” He smiles, he brings home his prizes from his bingo wins, he brings crafts home, he talks about his friends, and, most importantly, he talks about how great the staff treats them all. That is the most powerful, meaningful ingredient: How he is being treated. The staff treats him like gold. I have seen what this horrific disease can do and has done to him mentally; it robs him of his confidence and robs him of being able to do things you and I do independently. It robs him of talking in full sentences, robs him of being able to get in a car and drive, robs him of cooking for himself, robs him of working – something he loved to do, working gave him purpose and he lost that purpose – robs him of living everyday life the way you and I do. But it did not rob his heart.
He is now very sad, very worried, and very scared. Tonight, he cried because he does not understand why they are closing. “Why would they do that?” he says. To be forced to have to make a decision to possibly have to send him to a far place, a foreign place with strangers, is a very insecure, painful decision for all involved, most importantly my father and anyone who suffers from this horrific disease.
The decision to close the center is devastating to him and to our family. The Springfield Adult Day Center is a part of our family and our community. Community means more than money, if that is what this is about. Providing and caring for our golden generation is important, and frankly all of our duties, especially our local hospital. Not everything is about money, sometimes things are about what is right and what is needed. We may all be where my father is one day, and what will you want your community to provide you and your family?
This generation deserves better than to be tossed out – that is what this feels like to him and to all involved. I ask you to reflect on your decision that has a tremendous negative impact on our elders.
They deserve better than this. Please do what is right.
Sincerely,
Marlo Mora
Weathersfield, Vt.