Intergenerational living

I’m walking through my neighborhood, taking inventory of the houses here, as I always do. My mother is a healthy seventy year old who zumbas three times a week (I learned from my mom that "zumba" is a verb), but since the mortality rate in our country remains a stable 100%, I’m pretty sure she’ll be slowing down some day.

So, I walk around the blocks, sizing things up, in the hopes that we can find a beautiful little home for her, close by so that I can take care of her when she can’t always take care of herself.

Of course, there’s the possibility that she’ll be living with us, so we made sure that we would have an extra bedroom when we picked out our home. I know many times people have to put their parents in a nursing home. I have instructed my daughter that she needs to put me in one, guilt-free. But, a nursing home seems exorbitant in our case. I have a husband who gets along with my mom and a mom who doesn’t have major health issues. We both work at home, so taking care of my mom makes the most sense. Plus, I’m a pastor who has spent substantial hours in different homes for the last 15 years. They can be beautiful places, and they can be difficult. Some people love them; other people sit in desperate loneliness.