About Sheila Grinell

There’s a small auditorium – complete with 164 upholstered seats, stage and proscenium, baby grand piano, and green room – at my CCRC. It doubles as a gathering place on weekdays and a chapel on Sundays…
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My husband and I moved into The Terraces last July, joining about 300 other residents living in independent apartments. Since then, three people we came to know and like have passed away. All three were around 90 years old…
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A year before my husband and I committed to living in a CCRC, we had dinner with friends who had already done so. The four of us sat around a table in the restaurant in their community, and the couple talked at length…
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Do you remember birds singing loudly and persistently at the beginning of the pandemic when traffic disappeared from the streets and skies? At the time, I wondered if I were hearing birdsong that would normally have been…
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Soon after my husband and I moved into our continuing care retirement community, a hearty-looking fellow walked up to us and said, “I’m Tim, who are you?” I told him our names…
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About 250 people live in our continuing care retirement community, in six apartment buildings and two nursing facilities. Now, in pandemic mode, you don’t see many residents…
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Before the recent restrictions on socializing, every night after dinner in my community’s main building, an older gentleman sat in a wing chair opposite the central elevator, holding a bag of dog treats…
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One reason I’d wanted to move into my continuing care retirement community was to stop cooking dinner. I’d grown tired of planning meals, dashing to the supermarket for missing ingredients…
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One evening after we’d been living at The Terraces for a few weeks, my husband looked around the dining room and said, “These people are all old. How do you feel about it?”
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We entered the lobby – armchairs upholstered in mid-century colors; a painting of a rearing white horse; a row of walkers parked along a wall; a foursome of bent…
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