In golf, there is a game called Captain’s Choice. Captain’s Choice changes the spirit of the competition from individual accomplishment to “team performance.” We don’t generally think of golf as a team sport – it traditionally calls for acute concentration, silence by the crowd of onlookers and announcers, and a solo achievement shared only with the caddie if the player is gracious enough.

In Captain’s Choice – you take the best from your team and that is what drives the score. Let’s say you have a team of four. Each person takes a swing, and the next swing by all is taken where the best shot out of four is positioned. Each person on the team benefits from the best stroke taken on a given shot – be it the drive, the approach, the putt or in between. Consequently, the end result is a much better golf game than any one individual could have played. Captain’s Choice highlights the best of everyone.

This is a light hearted analogy to providing long term care to our seniors. But it is still illustrative of how we can achieve excellence and successfully fulfill our mission.

Hurricane Laura and COVID-19 have taught us more about working together under harried and fast-moving conditions as well as how much we truly rely on each other to carry out our individual and collective responsibilities.

We are better together.

Focused Care team members have a deep and abiding sense of what they have been able to do under unimaginably challenging conditions. Years from now, we will all ask ourselves, “How did we do that?”

I will answer that now and I hope our entire team remembers this:

You saved lives, you brought happiness and relief during a time of fear and grief, you poured forth compassion for your residents and each other and you somehow found the energy and drive to show up every day for your families, your community and those dependent on your attention to their health and well-being. You share a mission with Focused Care and you are determined to see it through.

That’s commitment.

Thank you to the Focused Care team who has tirelessly fought through destructive winds and rains and an insidious pandemic to keep those we care for safe. We know to take the best of who we are – and as a team, do what we must to win in the end.