Speaking of milestones

After experiencing the financial and emotional trauma of relocating my in-laws from a beautiful, large home in a golf course community to a small apartment in an assisted living facility back in 2007, my sons and I began looking for a better way for seniors. We found it with Visiting Angels®, “America’s Choice in Homecare” (I’m sure you’ve heard the tagline jingle to the TV and radio spots).

So, we opened Visiting Angels of Central Georgia in a small office in Warner Robins that we shared with the local U-Haul operation and began servicing our first senior client just after Labor Day in 2008; a milestone. From the very beginning, our vision, written on the walls of our office, as well as in our hearts, has been to treat clients according to the “Golden Rule”—As we would want to be treated ourselves.

Hardly a week passed from that opening before I met with the editor of The Houston Home Journal and asked if he would consider running a weekly column entitled, “All About Seniors” in order to educate, encourage and entertain seniors with stories and issues unique to our cohort. Partly because he was, at that time, caring for a senior family member himself, the editor jumped at the opportunity recognizing how it could be helpful to his senior readers; milestone two.

Milestones three, four and five were moving to successively larger offices to accommodate staff to service a growing family of seniors to be served.

Milestone six was recently opening an office in Tifton, Ga. to serve their seniors and hiring Alyssa Cain as Regional Director for that office. And now, milestone seven, is having the Tifton Gazette open its editorial pages to “All About Seniors. “A big Thank you to Billy Malone there at the Gazette!

As we begin our journey there to whatever is the next milestone, we pledge ourselves to provide “Golden Rule Service” to the seniors in Tifton just as we have to seniors a little further north.

Just as a business has milestones, so do each of us as individuals…

• We’re born

• We go to school and graduate

• We get a job

• We get married

• We have children

• We become empty nesters

• We become widows or widowers

• And then we reach the ultimate milestone of this life…passing to the next.

Most of us as seniors are getting close to that ultimate milestone. Are you ready? I hope so! But if there’s an uneasiness in your spirit as you face that question, may I suggest you reach out for some help? Here’s a website to go to that most of us in our generation have grown up with, The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. It offers this website: https://peacewithgod.net/.

It is wonderful having that peace in your heart, especially in these days of unrest that most of us could never have envisioned just a few short years ago. The Bible calls it “the peace that surpasses all understanding.” What a wonderful thing to have that peace in the midst of this storm!

Thanks for reading All About Seniors … see you next week!

PS: You’re also welcome to reach out to me personally at the email address below.

Bill Milby is a Director of Visiting Angels® of Central Georgia, a non-medical, living assistance service for seniors. If you have questions or comments about this column you can reach him at william.mercylink@gmail.com or search for us at https://www.facebook.com/VisitingAngelsofCentralGA/.

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