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Small Joys Segment 3: Home by the Fire

In our third and final installment on the small joys of living at Willow Brook, today we highlight Willow Brook Christian Home. The Home is the original Willow Brook campus, opened in 1972. Today it offers skilled nursing care, rehabilitation, and assisted living. This close-knit north Columbus community has a warm and welcoming feel, and the small joy we’re highlighting today—the fireplace—underscores this. Residents at the Home love to gather ‘round the fireplace to relax, chat, and stay cozy, especially in the winter. 

How does a fireplace bring so much joy, you ask? By serving as a comfortable gathering place in a time when isolation is more common than ever. By giving people who haven’t been acquainted yet a built-in reason to introduce themselves to one another. By providing warmth, both physical and emotional. By serving as a connection to residents’ growing-up years, when campfires and using wood as one’s main source of heat were much more common. By letting people reminisce, and tell stories—so much of this kind of personal connection has been lost with technology. But it has not been lost here at the Home! 

No matter if you are residing at the Home permanently or temporarily, the atmosphere is much more akin to sitting in your own living room with a cup of tea and a good book, fireplace blazing. 

“There is just something special about sitting around the fireplace…”

There is just something special about sitting around the fireplace, whether it’s the physical warmth, the mediative dancing flames, the camaraderie of quietly sitting next to an old friend, or striking up a conversation with a new friend; it draws together residents of all ages, introverted and extroverted alike.  

As all of us continue to navigate the Covid-19 pandemic, one thing we have learned is how important community really is. Our lives gain meaning in the presence of others. Perhaps that is why it is such a joy to meet around the fireplace: even in our masks, we are seen.