My mother dropped a bombshell on me this weekend. I called on Friday night to see if she was ok because she hadn’t returned any of my daily emails last week. My dad answered and asked me to call back as they were entertaining. Ok, I thought. She’s fine. They’re having company. How bad could she be?
Mom called on Saturday. I was out in the rain running in the Race for the Cure 5K which raises money for breast cancer research and missed her call. She called back. I was thrilled to talk to her and tell her about my messy run, but she had some news. “I think we need to do something different. This way of life isn’t working anymore.” Apparently my mom’s sister approached her a few days ago and asked her and my dad to consider moving to her retirement community. She’s worried that my mom is becoming more work than my dad is able to handle. The community that my aunt and her husband live in has varying degrees of housings - independent condos to nursing home and hospital facilities. “I want to live where someone is nearby that really loves me.” My reaction to that was, “Why don’t you move to Salt Lake?” “No way. We have no connections there.” Ok then.
She proceeded to tell me that it was what she needed to do even though my dad doesn’t need this kind of living. (He’ll be fine – I guess they have a great golf course.) They plan to sell our house in Minnesota (that I moved into when I was 5) and sell their condo in Florida.
It’s a lot to take in. I know she’s 78. I know she has cancer. I know this is inevitable, but it truly sucks.
I think the hardest thing for me to really fathom is that she is not getting better. I truly believed that she would get better.
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