Building an Addition
I was already scheduled to have my second (and right) hip replacement on May 7th of 2019. The left hip had been replace on May 5th of 2015, so I knew what I had ahead of me. It was now early in April, and I had been busy getting a leave set up in May from my work so that I could take the time needed for the operation and recovery/physical therapy. I was sitting in one of the rockers on the front porch of our home when my daughter and her husband arrived at our house from their walk with their two young sons.
“Mom, we think it is time for you and Dad to move into our house with us,” my daughter began. “We are gone most of each week to our apartment in New Jersey anyway, and the house just sits there empty. Why shouldn’t you guys be living there?”
YIKES! Here it was! We were going to have This conversation. It was so sweet of my daughter to ask, but taking us into their house was too much to ask of the two of them and their family, and I knew that only too well, having had my parents live with us for seventeen years at the end of their lives. I loved having my parents, but when their health began to fail, I had felt unprepared to give them the nursing care that they needed. The last two years of their lives we had nursing care for them in our home, and God was good, but it was a difficult time.
Now, years away from that time, I appreciate the situation as it was much more than I did when in the midst of it, because I know Mother and Daddy really got better care with me and the dear nurses who came in day after day than they would have gotten at a senior care facility, simply because the two of them were all we had to focus upon, and we were doing our best to keep them comfortable and well fed and bathed and all the rest. At the time, I worried that I wasn’t doing things right, and that my parents were not in a place dedicated to caregiving. My mom, who had feared getting put into an institutional setting seemed to relax, though, when we got her all set up with home care, so I have at least been grateful for that.
Anyway, during those years I felt sure that I wanted to put my husband and myself into a good senior care setting early enough that I could keep my children from thinking that they had to step up to the plate and take us in. Now here we were with just such a discussion taking place, but way earlier than I had anticipated. My husband and I were only 73. My parents had been 80 when they moved in with us. I figured we had a good 7 years, at least, still in us before I would feel the need for help. I had already taken us to the introductory session at a good local retirement community, and I figured that would be just the ticket for us when the time came. My husband seemed content with this. In the meantime, we had relocated when we both retired from my husband’s company, and we had renovated the house where we now sat on the front porch. It was a perfect place for two people who had a large family who could come visit and swim in our pool and go to the nearby beaches. I felt pretty sure my husband would agree with me that we would stay in this house for the near future.
“Oh, Honey!” I said, “I am pretty sure Dad will not want to leave this house for awhile, and I can’t think about such a thing right now because of my surgery that is coming up. Besides, you know that I am planning to move to the retirement community someday.”
“We know what you have planned, Mom, but we think you should rethink that,” my son-in-law said. “To me, family should be together. That is very much an Italian way of life.” He said this with such a sweet sincerity that I had to give him tons of credit.
My husband had been just the same way when we were talking with my own parents. His own generosity had been sorely tested as year stretched into year, but he had never once complained. I didn’t want that for my daughter and her husband.
Thinking I was in the clear, I said, “Well you can talk to Dad, but I am pretty sure this is not something he will be interested in doing, although we both will appreciate the fact that you asked us to consider it. That is very sweet of you, and it makes us feel wanted.”
Almost as soon as these words were out of my mouth, my husband opened the door and joined us on the porch.
“Hi, Sweetheart! The Kids have just asked me if we want to move in with them. We would have to sell the house, of course.” I figured I might as well get this discussion on the table and get his input right away. I waited for his response.
Robert looked thoughtful. That was not what I expected, but maybe he was just letting the kids down easy.
“Well, it is something to think about,” He finally said. “We could put the house on the market and see what happens.”
DOUBLE YIKES!!
“But I am scheduled for surgery,” I semi-shouted. “How can we do that while I am recovering?!” I was feeling a tad desperate. Things were not going the way I had anticipated. Now the Kids were reminding Robert that they were gone all week and we could be in the house to take care of things while they were gone. Robert was listening to them intently. This was Not good!