This Nursing Home Is Helping Its Single Residents Find Love In The Best Way

JOYOUS NEWS, YOU GUYS!

I know it's Tuesday, and Tuesdays are the silent killers of the work week. You know Monday is going to be brutal, but Tuesday? You never see that one coming. It's like Monday 2.0.

But, enough with that jibber-jabber and back to my joyous news.

I have found a little golden nugget of news that is going to color your miserable Tuesday with sunshine and rainbows. Turns out, love doesn't have to die as you get older.

The Hebrew Home nursing home in New York is doing its part to help out its residents who are looking for relationships. Through efforts such as organizing a happy hour and a senior prom and even starting a dating service called G-Date (Grandparent Date), its staff is doing whatever it takes to make sure that any residents looking for relationships have the means to do so.

This will be a great service to members such as Beverly Herzog, an 88-year-old widow. She told The New York Times about her deceased husband, Bernard. Every night, he would climb into bed with his arm outstretched. He'd tell her to "assume the position," and she would curl up next to him.

She continued,

I hate getting into a cold bed. I feel no one should be alone.

And now, she doesn't have to be. She can use G-Date and attend happy hours and maybe find herself a date to senior prom. Tell me your heart isn't full of warm, fuzzy butterflies.

Daniel Reingold, the president and CEO of RiverSpring Health, the organization that operates Hebrew Home, explains that growing old is full of loss. You lose your vision, your hearing, your mobility and even your loved ones.

But, he goes on to note that there is one thing you don't lose:

We don't lose the pleasure that comes with touch [...] If intimacy leads to a sexual relationship, then let's deal with it as grown-ups.

And deal with it as grown-ups is exactly what Hebrew Home is doing. Instead of simply denying the fact its residents are having sex, as seems to be the practice of most nursing homes, Hebrew Home has decided to address the fact of life head-on by creating a "sexual expression policy."

The policy, adopted in 1995, now attempts not only to encourage intimate relationships for those who want them, but also to protect members who don't want them from unwanted sexual advances.

In case you missed the memo, I love everything and anything having to do with confident old people wanting to get it on. So yeah, this made my Tuesday.

Citations: Too Old for Sex? Not at This Nursing Home (The New York Times)