The Plan??????
So the plan,came to me when I lost my job due to economic slowdown in 2008. I thought (and I knew was true, since I was writing their checks) that since their rent at assisted living was $2495.00 per month,a 2 bedroom apartment that included a meal a day for both of them. We needed to pay for 24 hour care for 6 months after Mom's stroke at $2500.00 per week. This later went down to 8hrs a day but still costly.In addition we paid for house cleaning and laundry. I still traveled a 60 mile round trip to shop, write checks, do errands, and generally check in to see how things were going. Up to the time of "the Plan" I was doing while working full time. My husband also stopped in 3 days a week.

If for no other reason than financial, moving here and sharing our house payment would save them THOUSANDS a month. It seemed like kind of a fun idea too. We would be hanging out. My Dad was against it though, as he said he remembered his grandmother lived with them and it caused too much friction between his own mother and her.

So lots of discussion, discomfort, no real arguing and one day while cooking some dinner in their apartment, Dad said out of nowhere, "Okay, we will live with you, I think you can handle it". So now began the rush of finding someone to come out and re-vamp the guest bathroom for handicapped use.Should we make my art studio into a guest house?Should each of them just take one of the extra bedrooms. How fast can all this be accomplished? One of the most important issues was that each person have their own television, which was accomplished with little difficulty.

But even our best laid plans go awry. Before the move even begun, before the handicapped toilet was purchased, Dad fell in their home and broke his hip. He was 93 years old. That happened at the beginning of September, during a televised Diamondbacks game. He had decided to walk into the kitchen for a cola and didn't want to bother to with his walker.