Eight elderly people were arrayed around the lobby of an assisted living center. They were in wheelchairs or walkers. Some were on phones or tablets. Some stared straight ahead. A nature show played silently on a monitor. The resident waited for rides and visitations and something I couldn’t figure out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I sat in the lobby waiting to tour the facility. I had bicycled there in 90-degree heat and soaked my dress shirt in the process. I had arrived 20 minutes early to get the lay of the land. I wanted to observe residents and staff before the tour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My visit was precipitated in haste after Dad fell twice in the house in the space of a week. We got lucky he didn’t seriously injure himself. Our mutual living arrangement was no longer sustainable. I had to get proactive and not reactive regarding his care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My mind raced with thoughts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Is this the right thing to do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The right place?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was nearby. We could still watch Perry Mason<\/em> every morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’m totally exhausted like I have never been before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What’s my future?<\/p>\n\n\n\n What happens when I’m old? Hart’s Cove or Otter Point here I come!<\/p>\n\n\n\n How long would Dad last in this place?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The marketing manager came up to me and introduced herself. Off we went. The dining room was first. We looked around. We sat down at a table and we went through all the particulars. They were daunting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After that, we checked out apartments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Eight elderly people were arrayed around the lobby of an assisted living center. They were in wheelchairs or walkers. Some were on phones or tablets. Some stared straight ahead. A nature show played silently on a monitor. The resident waited for rides and visitations and something I couldn’t figure out. I sat in the lobby […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8013,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11040"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11042,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11040\/revisions\/11042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}