Dad’s physical therapy team was very clear about the fact that Mom is simply not strong enough to be Dad’s sole care giver when he moved back home. We decided to scope out a bunch of the senior living complexes in the area. Katie did most of the research and set up tours, I just went with her. The first day we looked at six different places.
When I was a very young adult, I assumed the baby boomers would fix social security before I ever got close to collecting it, since it would certainly be in their best interest to do so and I’ve been pretty down on that generation for not doing a thing. The search for a new place for our parents showed me that the Baby Boomers haven’t spent the last forty years twiddling their thumbs. They’ve got senior life on a string!
We looked at a few places that simply wouldn’t work for my parents: if the apartments didn’t have a nice kitchen, we were out. Mom likes to cook, even if she doesn’t have to do it three times a day. We liked the places with beautiful grounds best and had several to choose from. One place was actually too swanky. My parents can move in swanky company but they don’t live that way. We narrowed the search down to four places with nice, large, light filled apartments in gorgeous settings with all the medical and health facilities that Dad needs now and Mom may need in the future. There were two at the very top of the list.
Katie, Andy, MJ and I all visited a fairly new place that opened up not three blocks from Katie’s house. It’s spectacular! The apartments are beautiful and the public spaces are phenomenal. A big beautiful library, gorgeous sitting rooms with fireplaces, five star restaurants right on the premises, wonderful gardens and with large patios and a grill for the chef for when the residents wanted an outdoor barbecue and a concierge at the front desk to help the residents have anything they want. There’s an office on site for doctors from the University of Minnesota, on call for any of the residents. As Andy said at the end of the tour “this isn’t an ‘old folks home’, this is how rich folks live!” And the whole place was decorated as if my Mom had been in charge. It didn’t make the top of our list because we didn’t think Mom and Dad would like a view of 50thas much as a view of a park. Also, they didn’t actually have any apartments available at the moment.
By some miracle, the two places we loved the most actually had two bedroom apartments available! We put down (fully refundable) deposits on both so Mom and Dad could have their pick.
Dad got to go home to stay on August 7. It was a great day! I met my Mom at the transitional care facility right after lunch. We packed Dad’s room up, said goodbye to the terrific therapy team who helped him and went home.
As soon as we got Dad home, I sent this photo with the text "the eagle has landed" to my siblings. Then we had the party Dad’s been dreaming of for four months: spaghetti and root beer floats! Everyone who could came and it was a smashing night! The next day we sat down with them and gave them all the info about the different senior living places we’d visited. Mom tried to dither back and forth about whether they really wanted to move, which was understandable but completely crazy. Dad put an end to the dithering when he said it was time to get the hell out of the house. I told Mom not to worry, if she were half as excited about these places as I was, she’d be packing her bag the second she got back from her visits. I was right! They loved both the places we had deposits on and quickly chose the one closest to most of us. Things are moving quickly. Heidi used to work for a company whose whole point was moving seniors from their houses to their new digs and setting things up as comfortably and familiarly as possible. We met with the owner, a super nice guy, last week. We need to go through the house and pick out what they’ll bring with them. Last week, one week after Dad came home, all our cousins on my Mom’s side of the family were in town for their mother’s memorial, which was on Tuesday. We all had dinner together at Mom’s house and it was great fun! We didn’t hang out much when we were all kids, especially after Bruce (mom’s brother) and Moira got divorced. They were the first couple I ever knew who did that. They lived here in town but not in our neighborhood. Anyway, the four cousins all grew up to be extremely cool people and now we try to get together as often as we can, which isn’t very often, since D. lives in LA, S. lives in Italy and K lives for the moment in Cairo. A. and her husband are here in town. Their three kids are all a bit younger than mine. As the evening ended, we noticed that Dad was having trouble with his left arm. A.s husband is a heart surgeon; he did a few motor skill tests on Dad, then told Mom that if the weakness persisted til morning, to take him to the doctor. Turns out, Dad had suffered a TIA, a minor stroke. They checked him into the hospital for a few days to try to find out why this happened and if they could prevent another. Now he’s back in transitional care for a little while. He went back to the place where he loves all the therapists and they know him. While he’s working on regaining some strength in his left arm and leg, we’re going to move them into the new place. He’ll return home to a place much better suited to his needs. This just hits the high points. For all the gory details of our search, what it took to convince Mom to pull the trigger (Dad actually made the decision) and how much work went into all of it (mostly Katie’s) you’ll have to wait for the book. It’ll be hilarious, because that’s the only way to get through this stuff. | |