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Sometimes, when something just feels right, it announces itself quietly.
Standing behind the kitchen bench in her sunny two-bedroom apartment, coffee in hand, Bev recalls with perfect clarity the moment she turned to her daughter Brenda and said, “This feels like home.”
Brenda Edwards still smiles when she thinks about it. “I really wasn’t expecting that.”
For months, Bev and her husband, Mike, had been popping by the cafe at Awatere Retirement Village to catch up with their daughter, sipping flat whites while taking in the easy banter among the residents.
Brenda, who is the village sales manager, would tease them and ask if they’d like to look at an apartment while they were there. “They’d always say, no thank you,” recalls Brenda with a twinkle in her eye.
It wasn’t until Bev and Mike began seriously thinking about what life might look like next that they agreed to have a look.
Somewhere between stepping through the door and standing behind that kitchen bench, something shifted.
“We’d looked at all sorts of places,” said Bev. “I’m not sure we really knew what we were looking for. But when I walked into that apartment, it just felt different.”
Brenda spent 16 years in residential property so she’s well versed in the practicalities of selling and moving, but the conversations she has now are very different from the one’s she had in her previous life.
“People can arrive quite weighed down by all the questions and reservations they have about moving into a retirement village,” she says. “Often they’re wondering whether they’re ready at all. My parents were no different.
“I’m here to listen and to help take that weight off people’s shoulders. There’s no way I’m going to talk my parents into anything,” she says in mock horror. “Everyone needs to come to their own decision in their own time.”
“I always tell people to shop around and chat to residents,” she says. “I also encourage them to bring their family in.” Brenda gave her own parents exactly the same advice.
“Every village feels different, and sometimes it’s the things you can’t quite put your finger on that make it feel like home. It has to feel right for you.”
It’s that je ne sais quoi that did it for Bev. Maybe it was the down-to-earth warmth of the residents she’d met over those coffees in the cafe. Or the people she’d observed gathered around the fireplace in the lounge and on the bowling green, laughing and so obviously enjoying each other’s company.
Bev herself is surprised by how social she’s become. A friendly chat in the lounge became an invitation to play cards and before she knew it, she’d learned a new game and been welcomed into the fold by a whole new group of friends. “Mike says I do more here, which I do. But it’s all here and it’s so easy to mix.”
Like most of her new neighbours, Bev and Mike left behind a much larger home. Bev worried about what she might miss. “I thought I’d miss my garden the most, but they have lovely gardens here.” She grimaces, saying, “I certainly don’t miss cleaning that four-bedroom house.”
A keen golfer, Mike had never so much as picked up a bowl – until some of the other residents invited him for a game. “I didn’t know how to play bowls” and he admits he was reluctant to demonstrate his lack of form. “But they said, ‘Come on, come join us and give it a go.’”
Mike’s smile says it all. He was hooked, not just on the game, but on the easy companionship. “Yep, I just fell into this place and loved it.”
What they didn’t see coming was the joy of freedom. “There’s a real sense of lightness that I didn’t expect,” muses Bev. “I’m waiting for someone to come and knock on the door and say, your time’s up, and I’ll have to pay the bill and leave.”
Mike agrees. “It hasn’t stopped me doing any of the things I used to do. There are just things I used to do that I no longer have to do.”
Brenda hears comments like that often. People come here and discover that their world has actually become bigger, not smaller.
“I see the residents every day and that’s what makes this job so rewarding – I see them absolutely flourishing here.”
Brenda has delighted in watching her own parents thrive at Awatere.
“Mum knew she’d found the right place even before the boxes were unpacked, and the cards were dealt when she was standing behind the kitchen bench with her cup of coffee and said, ‘This feels like home.’”
Find out more about Awatere Village here