I visit a local retirement facility each weekday with some few exceptions. Generally I arrive while breakfast is being served to the residents. The menu for the meal is basically the same, and I might add is extremely generous. It makes my pitiful daily ritual look third world. However, when you are served eggs, grits, sausage, toast and traditional beverages as a steady diet, the servings, to some, become boring because of their predictability. Of course there are some who have special diets.
One resident I visit greeted me recently on one of my morning visits with a big smile; she had been served something that she enjoyed but rarely had served to her for the fast-breaking morning meal. It was nothing that many people do not enjoy at home with regularity. She had been served pancakes.
It was wonderful to me to witness the joy that this brought into her life. She said that pancakes were her favorite meal, but she had been unable to have them served on her morning tray. But she continued to make her wishes known to her server who repeatedly told her that the facility’s menu was not decided locally but that the meals were planned at corporate headquarters. The kitchen staff simply followed the dictates of the higher ups and that meant no pancakes for whatever reason. But there was a dietician that came to the rescue.
The dietician manager was aware of the pancake request but had not been successful in filling the request, but things changed recently.
Occasionally the manager had to visit a local food supplier, and as she toured the aisle she came upon the much desired pancake section. She had no company funds for such a purchase but not because the item was forbidden as part of the breakfast serving; it was for whatever reason simply not the company policy to stock the item. But she knew that pancakes spelled happiness not only to the one resident I mentioned but indeed to a total of 4 residents who had a yearning for the delicacy.
Out of her own pocket she decided that she would make the quartet happy with the much longed surprise so into the grocery cart went the much requested variation to the usual diet: pancakes.
What is happiness? It can be anything that brings joy into one’s life and in this case, something that is brought to life with the addition of butter and syrup.
I spoke to the dietician later, and she mentioned that it made her feel good to be able to make the four residents happy. I reminded her that she was wrong in the number she made happy. The number was not 4, it was 5 since it gave me joy to see the effects a good deed had on the 5 of us, 4 consumers and 1 observer.
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Bill Lee, PO Box 127, Hamer, SC 29547
