On Moving an Old Lady

An old friend, a woman I grew up with who is a peer of my parents, and whose daughter is my age, fell on some ice down her front steps in February. She hurt her ankle but was too stubborn and, frankly, the city was too choked with snow and ice this year to get an emergency vehicle to her house. Instead, she sat in a wheeled chair and scooted around for three days, wondering why it wasn’t getting better until a friend took her to a doctor. The doctor sent her straight to the hospital and about five days later she had surgery to put her three-times broken ankle back together.

Eight weeks in respite care in an old age home in a wheelchair, and now she’s in rehab for two weeks before she can be set free on the world and become (more) independent again. She’ll be able to get around with her walker and when she can press hard on a brake without pain, she can drive her car again. Then she’ll be truly free to head to her cottage and sit by the lake for most of the summer.

In the meantime, she’s going bonkers. She will turn 82 this spring. She’s got all her marbles, or at least most of them. We will call her J.

J decided that this was as good a time as any to move out of her aging and valuable home in the south end and into assisted living. First of all, the ankle will take time to heal and her house has three flights of stairs. At her age, she can maybe live somewhere that does not have a rickety flight of steps outside that will get all icy . Her one and only daughter lives on the other side of the country and is hugely…