Why, after my mother died, did my father choose to enter the Orangewood “Retirement Community” (read “prison for old folks”) rather than the Beatitudes, a larger and more established prison?
I could walk to either of these places from here. If I could afford to give this house to my son (moot: when I have to go into a “retirement community,” I most certainly will not be able to afford any such generosity), I could consign myself to either institution and be within walking distance of where he could live.
If he chose to do so.
More likely, he’d sell this place. Either bank the money and stay in his present home, or leave the proceeds from the sale to pay off his own mortgage.
Orangewood is on a single story. It’s built like…oh…I dunno…it kind of reminds you of a motel. Spread out. Grassy views outside most of the apartments. Laundry rooms down the hall from your place. A chow hall serving awful food — you’re required to show up there for at least one (bad!) meal a day, so they can count you.
The Beatitudes, another option for old-folks’ “living,” occupies a high-rise — actually, more like a mid-rise building. It’s built like a hotel, with the chow line and meeting rooms on the ground floor.
Either way, to my mind they’re depressing places. Mostly because I strongly dislike communal living — hated living the college dorms, don’t wanna wrap up my life that way.
But…it’s hard to see any way around them.
I probably could hire someone to come in and take care of me. But…who’s to oversee such a person? Unless someone were checking on me daily, how could we be sure I was being kept clean, that I was fed regularly (and decently), that the house was kept clean, that nothing was stolen…on and on and on. Expecting my son to ride herd in that way is, I fear, expecting too much. He has…you know…a life. And he can’t take half of it to devote to riding herd on my last months or (heaven forfend!) years.
Probably one of the best of the many excellent things my father did for me was to move himself into an old-folkery after my mother died. If I’d had to take care of him, I would never have finished the dissertation, never have completed the Ph.D.
But why on earth would that have mattered? Yes, I did get one (count it, 1) halfway decent job because of the doctorate. Published a book or three. But helle’s belles! I could have done as well or better without a Ph.D. in freakin’ English.
Annoying, isn’t it, to arrive at the end of life and realize you flubbed it? 😀 You wasted God only knows how many years.
Now what?