Living in this place is more enjoyable in the ways people realize. I decided to move here after a heart attack left me unable to live alone. My children and grandchildren worried about me falling and had to check on me every day, becoming a burden to them. So I sold my house and most of my belongings and moved here. The name doesn't even hide the fact of what it is, Lakewood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. This is where I will spend the rest of my life. This place isn't one of those charming retirement villages you see advertised on television, it has its ups and downs. Lakewood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, or as we call it here Lakewood for short, has more of a hospital environment than a home front. However, the building itself is pleasant and well constructed. In front, a large car park leads to an avenue surrounded by splendid flower gardens; they have lilies, azaleas, hydrangeas and poppies to name a few. Large green lawns are found on both sides of the gardens and are a great place to relax and socialise. Behind the building is a large courtyard with a couple of smaller warehouses dotting the landscape. Including storage sheds, a porch and a gazebo are attached to the back of the building where parties and birthdays are held. A light green three-story building is what I now call home. I live on the second floor. Each plan is reserved for a certain demographic. The first level houses the main atrium just beyond the main entrance. Staff members decorate the lobby for certain seasons. It also hosts the community bulletin board with calendars indicating dates and times for activities such as bingo, gardening, house game shows and exercise. Mainly, the first floor… middle of the paper… no bathing, constantly getting bed sores and all sorts of things. These things aren't done on purpose, with 600 seniors to care for and needs changing dramatically every day as residents enter their final months. We are all destined for the third floor, whether that third floor is here in Lakewood, in a car accident, fighting for his life after an illness in a hospital bed, or in an alley meeting his death under the blade of some criminal. The third floor is a reality we all face at some point during our stay in Lakewood. This place is where most of us here in Lakewood will say goodbye to death. Some will be afraid that our life's mission is still incomplete, even though we are so old and something is tearing our soul apart from within. Others like me have made peace with our end. Every life has a debt with death, the debt that we all have to pay, after all we are all just ash and dust.