I have had a break in my life as my mom passed away in January. It has been very hard to get back on track with the business of making mealtime meaningful for residents and staff in care communities. It is so important and I was jarred back to reality yesterday when listening to this story from a dining director. She said her dad lives in the community she works. He suggested she hire her autistic brother to work in the dining room serving meals. She explained it wouldn’t be appropriate because with autism its difficult to connect with people and he didn’t have the serving skills. Her dad looked at her and said, “but you already hire people like him”.