Writing off into the sunset

Former Sun City resident Sondra Kastin was born and raised in the Bronx, and it’s the way she says it, bold and full of tough, that lets you know she’s not fooling around about that. And maybe she shouldn’t, because the recent story of Sondra Kastin is a real Bronx Tale, one not lacking moxie, brilliance, or the will to write on.

In 1929, Kastin was born into the expatriate movement of Hemingway and Fitzgerald, then was pulled like a slingshot through the 50s when Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs hit the road and pioneered the beat generation with their sly and swanky prose. These literary environments (directly or indirectly – who knows) solidified a creative tension in Kastin that is the trademark of her era. Today, at 83, Kastin still churns out stories that snap, fly, and hit you right in the chest. Only now she’s doing it from her private room at Sunset Haven, a senior group home in Elgin, where she is considered a hospice patient.

“The main diagnosis I have is congestive heart failure,” Kastin explained. “What shocked me is I’ve always been so healthy.”

Sunset Haven owner Andrea Bass related that when Kastin was first moved in, in February of this year, the hospice organization previously caring for Kastin informed her that Kastin only had two weeks to live and that she was considered a two-person transfer, which means that two people must help her move from point A to point B.

However, from the moment when paramedics first wheeled Kastin into Sunset Haven, Kastin abandoned her wheelchair and today moves around Sunset Haven with only the occasional assistance of a walker.

Furthermore, Kastin is currently writing a semi-autobiographical short story about her life and experiences at Sunset Haven (which will be published in the Sun Day upon its completion), despite the ebb and flow of her health.

“When you really know something, that’s what you write about,” Kastin said.

Kastin started writing as a young girl in the Bronx and then continued her writing later when she lived in Florida with her husband. Her writing bloomed even further when she moved into Sun City and joined the Write On! writing club.

“I really started to get into writing again when I joined Sun City’s Write On! club,” Kastin said. “The people in the club were a great inspiration to me.”

Although Kastin’s work is fiction, she said it’s rooted in reality.

“It’s all real. It’s not like I’m making it up right now. It really happened. I just look at it like it happened to somebody else,” Kastin said. “But I know it; I know it so well.”

For the last year, Kastin bounced around through assisted-living facilities, hospice organizations, and rehab centers, but since moving to Sunset Haven, Kastin said, her writing “is progressive, better than I thought it would be.”

What distinguishes Sunset Haven from other facilities that fall under the label of an assisted-care facility, assisted-living facility, or the ubiquitous nursing home, is that Sunset Haven really is a private, residential home located on Alfred Ave. in Elgin. At Sunset Haven residents have the same comforts they were used to in their own homes: a kitchen, living room, private bedrooms, a TV room, sunroom, and yard present a family-like lifestyle not commonly seen at other facilities of the like.

Bass (a certified nursing assistant) opened Sunset Haven in the Fall of 2006, after owning a homecare business in Elgin.

She said, “We [Bass and her business partner] always had to let our people go to nursing homes because a place like [Sunset Haven] was really unheard of in this part of Illinois.”

Bass employs approximately 10 part-time staffers and is fully licensed by the Illinois Department of Public Health for shared housing, which is assisted living.

Although Sunset Haven provides all the same technical care found at larger facilities, Bass believes the quaint and small environment comes with benefits you can’t find elsewhere.

“You can only get that detailed, good care in a smaller place. You have to keep it small. I’d never have more than five or six residents in here. I’d rather have another Sunset Haven,” said Bass. “We run it as a family.”

“It’s a step away from the institutional feeling,” Kastin added.

Bass said Sunset Haven is not very publicized, which is part of what keeps the environment small and unique feeling.

“I like to take care of the residents. It’s my passion,” Bass said, who works at Sunset Haven daily. “If I don’t see and if I don’t hear, then I don’t know what’s wrong with [our residents]. I take pride in it.” Bass furthered that the communication between her and her staff is effective and efficient and “the best.”

“If I see our residents smile, I know I did my job well for the day,” Bass said.

“I’ve seen the improvement in some people [from living here],” Kastin said. “It gives me a gratification to see how she’s [Bass is] making them go forward.”

Kastin enjoys her life and time there very much and said whenever a visitor walks through the door for the first time, she knows what they’re going to say before they say it. Kastin iterated, “They look around, and they say, ‘Gee, if only my father could have been in a place like this.’”

In an email correspondence with the Sun Day, Kastin’s daughter and Sun City resident Jess Chipkin said, “I love that place [Sunset Haven] – it has made a huge difference in my life and the life of my sisters in terms of not having to worry about her [Kastin] all the time.”

Cutline: Former Sun City resident Sondra Kastin shares a laugh with Sunset Haven owner Andrea Bass.

Cutline: Kastin writing at her work station in her private Sunset Haven bedroom.

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