Mom and Me

Mom was never great at directions. Dad did the bulk of the driving for their 62 years of marriage. Mom did drive herself to work daily when I was a teen and older, and she knew how to navigate to their cabin about an hour away from home. I posted before about her decision to surrender her car keys in 2022. But this is a location issue of a different sort. She is often not sure where she is, and is concerned about what she has to do to prepare to "go home". There are several common concerns she shares - one of the most frequent is that we are at the cabin and need to pack up to go home. She will ask me several times per day (especially into the evening) where her suitcases are, or whether she has time to do a load of laundry before we go home. In real life, the cabin has no laundry facilities. And we sold it more than four years ago to help to fund our bachelorette pad. When I have driven somewhere on business she will sometimes think that she has been the one to go on a trip....

Pro tip - clear polish keeps print from rubbing off! She's approaching 86 years old now, but during the last few years of her working life Mom was a registered nurse with a four-year BSN degree. She wanted to be a nurse for a long time, finally graduated at age 53, and worked at our local hospital for 9 years before she retired. She was proud of being a nurse, and we were proud of her accomplishment. As we were growing up Mom carefully (ok, maybe obsessively) managed her diet and exercise, especially her diet, for a long time. She didn't want to be overweight, which was an uphill battle with her genetics, and I'd say she won that battle. She also battled high blood sugar, and through her self-management, was able to avoid medication for at least 20 years. Eventually, though, the cocktail of diabetes meds and the pills for blood pressure and cholesterol became part of the routine. Mom was fastidious about maintaining her pill caddy, organizing the a.m. and p.m., and carrying...

In the 3-1/2 years Mom and I have shared a house, she has become a different person than she was when we started this project. For her, being almost 86 is a lot different than it was at 82. My assumptions four years ago were that I'd work during the day in my home office, take care of the pets, and do the yard work, she would share making dinner and do the bulk of the routine housework. Housework had always been her specialty and her purpose. (She was, and is still, obsessive about doing laundry). In Fall of 2020 when we made our new house plan she was still doing her own shopping and cooking, and going to her various medical appointments. Then about a year and a half later my brothers (who live a few states away) noticed before I did that she wasn't retaining the information they were sharing when they called her. She was repeating herself.  I had taken over paying her bills for her when we moved to our new house, and she was glad for that. The money management was always Dad...

Mom will tell you that she has never been great about directions. For 62 years, Dad was the primary driver, with Mom's Honda Civic mostly short-hopping from home to church, the grocery store, and her favorite department store. During mid-life, when they bought their cabin, she would sometimes drive solo for the hour it took to be in the woods and relaxing on their front porch near the lake. But that was about it. Location was important when we moved to our current house. Although it wasn't in her customary 10-minute radius from her condo, we chose a spot nearby some landmarks from her teen years. I thought that would work, even for someone not known for her directional proficiency. I was wrong. The pull of habit caused Mom to drive PAST about 4 grocery stores on our new side of town to shop at her old familiar one. She deplored the expressway and the traffic-filled bypass, so she took the back roads to get there. Then one day she called me. She was lost, confused, and tearful. ...

It was Covid time, and although I had a few loyal clients, corporate coaching was slow. Revenue wasn't awesome. When he died, Dad had left Mom with life insurance proceeds and some reserves, but most of her money and mine was tied up in real estate. Our Bachelorette Pad was a joint project, so we each kicked in toward the down payment. This meant, though, that we had to think through the process of freeing ourselves from our current properties and unlocking some cash. The family cabin was the first to go, sadly. Mom and Dad had just fixed it up a year earlier, with a new roof, fresh paint on the exterior, and new screens on the porch. We loved that cabin, and made so many memories there before and during our children's time with us. BUT both of us were concerned about ongoing maintenance and the aging oak trees that surrounded it. Several trees had fallen while Dad was alive, narrowly missing the cabin.  Also in the maintenance category, there was the required annual shut-off o...

The concept was simple: create a multi-generational living situation that would include Mom, me, and my remaining minor child, who was a high school senior studying remotely due to Covid. My townhouse didn't have enough space for all of us, and Mom's condo didn't either.  We (I) had a few requirements: Single story or two-story with a lift chair. Four bedrooms - one for me, one for Mom, one for my HS senior, and one (or an equivalent space) that I could use for my office. 2-1/2 baths preferred - both Mom and I have hair regimes that consume time and space. This sounds vain, but I'm being real with you here. A safe shower - Mom's condo had only tub/shower combos, and it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to step in and out safely. A fenced yard, or one that could be fenced - we have two dogs, and although I walk them daily, we need to be able to let them outside more frequently without being out in the weather. Mom wasn't - and isn't - able to walk t...