All she ever wanted to do was stay at home.
When she and Craig first met and married, Anna chose a pretty traditional route for a woman of her generation. She stayed at home to focus her time and energies on raising their three boys. Though her boys each married women that chose to work outside the home, she never questioned her own decision.
All she ever wanted to do was stay at home.
When she lost Craig to cancer, her oldest son suggested she move to Denver to be near him. She knew his offer was sincere, but she couldn’t imagine moving that far away. Too cold.
Her Dallas son suggested she move there. Most days Dallas isn’t cold, he offered. Too big, she said.
Her third son never suggested she move to be near him, which would have elicited a laugh from everyone if he had. He moved every two years, for better jobs, greener pastures and new wives. Too transitory, she thought.
Anna grieved Craig’s loss and fought the demons of loneliness and fear. But she made it because of her community of friends, some from church, others from around town. These women were the kind of friends that grow slowly, but whose roots run deep, eventually intertwining with one another, as connected beneath the surface as above.
She traveled some, mostly to see grandchildren. Every two years her group of “travel buddies” splurged and took a trip…once an Alaskan cruise, once a trip to Italy…but nothing ever matched the trip to Israel, to the Holy Land. She only cried once while there, wishing she could hold Craig’s hand one more time while standing on the same patch of ground on which Jesus stood. That would have been sweet.
But the best part of any trip was always the last part…the part where she came home. She came to laugh at herself. “Silly girl,” she would think. “Why’d you ever leave in the first place if you love coming back home so much!”
Then the travel stopped. At first it seemed that it simply became too much of a nuisance. Then she was honest with herself and admitted she really could no longer do it if she wanted to. Just too hard.
“Momma, don’t you think it’s time we started thinking about finding you a place to live?” one of her sons said one day, trying to broach the subject gingerly.
“I’ve got a place to live. You remember, you used to live here too,” she replied matter-of-factly. She had no intention of making this easy for him.
“Momma, you know what I’m talking about…”
“Yes, I know exactly what you’re talking about. I am perfectly capable of staying in my home and taking care of myself. I may not be able to travel much, but that’s all the more reason for you, Cindy and those beautiful grandchildren of mine to come visit me.”
“But Momma, what about when you can’t live all by yourself?”
“Then I’ll pay someone to come stay with me. Your father made sure that we had the kind of long-term care insurance that pays for care in your own home. He didn’t want either of use to have to leave home for care because of money.”
What she didn’t say was that the home-based long-term care insurance was really her idea. Craig had his good points, but she’d always be the cleaver one with money. But he was gone and she liked putting his best foot forward for his son.
“OK Momma, I get your point,” he said and changed the subject.
Anna knew the topic would come up again one day, and perhaps there would be a day when she could no longer stay at home. But for now, thanks to some good planning year earlier, home is where she would stay.
All she ever wanted to do was stay at home.
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