Moving in to independent or assisted living.

[DFW]

14. We have the same issue with my wife's mother

We were just up at her place in a tiny town up north for her 95th birthday. She is nearly blind and is going deaf. She has hearing aids, but is too stubborn to use them. She insists on staying in the house she has lived in for over 30 years. We checked the assisted living facilities in her area, but they were awful. A friend of hers, the same age as she, and in better health, moved into one of them two or three years ago. She was dead within two weeks.

My wife and I are now both 70. We have had our house for 32 years now, and have accumulated some stuff over the years. Anything of value, I’ll have sent to Heritage Auctions in Dallas, since I have connections there, and the insignificant stuff can probably be disposed of locally, if and when. Our Germany-based daughter is an attorney—she’ll know someone who can do the mechanics.

I still work full time, and I’m in a different country practically every day. I’ve got to start slowing down at some point, but I’m not there yet. I fear boredom will kill me quicker than my work schedule. My wife is “retired,” although she is more active now than when she was working. Her most-oft repeated phrase is, “I just don’t have time for that!” Like Warren Zevon sang, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” Which, come to think of it, he now is.