To move or not to move

Tell me I'm not being selfish. Tell me that it is the right thing for Dad to move. Tell me that I want him to leave his house of 42 years because it's better and safer for him and not just because it's easier and more convenient for me.

We've been begging Dad to move for months, years even. After Mom died, and he was out there in that house by himself, we wanted him closer to us. With Colleen and I living 5 minutes apart, and Jennifer closer to us than to Dad, we just thought we could see him more and do more with him if he lived nearby.

We had many false starts. We looked about 3 years ago at patio homes right down the street from me. They were nice. He knew my mom's cousin who lived there. But the cost was more than he wanted to pay, he said. He wasn't ready. So he didn't move.

Then the bottom fell out of the housing market, and the stock market took a dive, and GM went bankrupt. Dad lost tens of thousands of dollars in equity in his house along with all of his GM stock. He was not going to move with that hanging over his head.

But it was a buyer's market, we said. It's a great time to purchase. You can get a nice place for a song. So we looked. He seemed interested in some other patio homes, but again, they were too much or too big or too small. Back to square one.

So all this time, Dad was dealing with his Parkinson's. He was slow, but he was steady. He was able to do stairs fairly well. He could get up and down out of his chair with ease. He could take his medicine without help. He could drive and take his garbage out and change his sheets and trim his toenails. His moving, then, would have been for us, so that he could be around us more. We worried about him being lonely. Living 30 minutes away made it difficult for him to be with us or for us to be with him as frequently as we would have liked. So he stayed put.

Then a year and a half ago, the health problems kicked in with a vengeance. He had a heart cathetarization done. Eye surgery to lift his lids so they would close. He started taking blood thinner. He began falling every once in awhile. His gait became slower. He had an endoscopy done and they found ulcers in his stomach. He stopped taking blood thinner. He got a pacemaker. His blood pressure went too low, and he began to get light headed when he stood. When they tried to fix it, his pressure went too high. He began seeing things...a black cat in the family room, a dog in the hall, people in the yard who weren't there. He began to have trouble seeing. He couldn't keep track of which medicine to take when. He choked on food. He froze in the driveway and ended up in the hospital for 3 days while his vitals were stabilized.

We found a new doctor who had him go through physical therapy, take a driving test, change medication. Things leveled out for awhile, but we had begun to worry not just about him being lonely, but about him being alone at all. People questioned his driving. We signed him up for free public transportation but he wouldn't take it. The visiting nurse who came after his hospitalization suggested he move. We suggested assisted living. His doctor recommended it. So did his sister and his nephew. Still, he resisted.

He continued to fall. He continued to freeze. He continued to drive. We continued to worry. We got him to look at moving again. At one condo complex, the seller's realtor asked who was looking at the property. We told her Dad was. She raised her eyebrows into her hairline and said, "You need to be looking at assisted living, not condos." We stopped looking at condos.

The doctor saw him in the fall. He told him he should really consider a different living situation. We went to talk to the social worker there. Dad's brother came along. They all pushed assisted living. Dad agreed it might be a good idea. We made an appointment with an elder law attorney and got his papers in order. (His will, un-notarized, was signed in 1972 by two people who are now deceased.) The lawyers strongly suggested assisted living. They even looked at his assets and showed him how he could afford it. He finally agreed to look. So we made an appointment and went last Wednesday.

It was a nice place. There were many people engaged in all kinds of activities. The apartments were very nice. They were fairly roomy. They had full kitchens. They had nice balconies. Three squares a day were included in the fee along with transportation to the grocery to doctor appointments to outings. They had Wii bowling and sing alongs and an indoor pool and sit-ercize. Dad remains uncommitted.

So I push to see other places. I continue to row this boat, nearly by myself, trying to avoid the falls (literally and figuratively) looming in the future. And I ask myself, "If Dad's time is limited, and we know it is, for whose benefit would he be moving? Mine or his?"