It’s been a doozy of a month.

I spent a few weeks this summer helping my mom (with dementia) and step dad (cancer) find a decent retirement home. It’s in the neighborhood they have lived in for the past 30 years and where their doctors are. It’s actually a wonderful facility with Independent Living, Assisted Living, and Memory Care. Finding a retirement option with a decent Memory Care facility was more difficult than I had imagined. Most I visited felt like bare bones state run mental facilities. It, frankly, depressed me to contemplate my mother ever residing in one of those places. The property I found for them has a beautiful Memory Care building. It looks like a resort. Since I know my mom will need a facility like this to be safe and well taken care of, I pushed REALLY HARD for them to choose this spot. I also spoke with an expert on how best to handle the move for my mom because she is not doing well. The advice entailed making the move as quickly as possible and getting acclimated to their new surroundings to alleviate stress on the person who can’t remember from day to day why they had to move out of their much loved home. Unfortunately my step dad was unable to make this happen due to his own anxiety and frustration with having to move.

I had a trip down to Ojai scheduled for myself. It had been on the calendar for a couple months. I had scheduled a builder to put a detached office in the backyard for Blue Eyes complete with hardwood floors, ethernet, a mini split, french doors, etc… I really want this move to Ojai to happen sooner versus later. I’m pretty stubborn when it comes to something I want this bad.

I begged my dad to make the move before mid September so I could be there to help. He said, “not going to happen.” His excuse, too much to pack, too much to do. I implored him to only pack up (preferably when mom wasn’t there) what they absolutely needed to go from a 2500 square foot 3 bedroom + den, 2.5 bath house to a 700 square foot 1 bedroom, 1 bath apartment. Leave the rest for after the house sells. They’re extremely tidy and clean people who have taken immaculate care of their house for 30 years. In the time between making the decision to move (they went back on that decision at least six times and guess who had to remind them why this wasn’t a choice anymore) my dad fell twice. First time he sustained a wound that required three trips to the ER (he’s been through 30+ rounds of chemo at this point) for excessive bleeding and redressing, and the second fall (he tripped over a moving box in the middle of the night), he broke a rib. His bones are so brittle at this point, and he refuses to use a walker. UGH!

Well, they finally made the move to the retirement home, while I was in Ojai. My cousin and The Peacemaker helped ease the stress on the day. They are not happy and much to my utter frustration, they go back to their house every day for some reason or another. They haven’t put it on the market as they changed their mind regarding the realtor they had chosen, and now we’re heading into the holidays.

Their retirement home has lots of activities including happy hours, exercise classes, pool aerobics, art classes, lectures, excursions off property, etc… They haven’t participated in any of it yet. I can see this is going to be a slow slog. The whole, “you can lead a horse to water…” thing is so true. We’re having dinner with them tonight at their new place. The building has two restaurants, a pub, a fancy coffee shop… it has its own dog park!!!

Why does this part of life have to be so difficult. I’m ready for things to become simpler, not harder.