Retirement Home

What is your choice? Assisted Living? Nursing Home? Living with your children? Your own home? Sometimes circumstances may take control. However, let us assume that we can make the decision. What is your choice? I made mine ten years before retirement. Time and health may prove me wrong, but I choose to move as though I have total control.

Ten years before retirement, my wife and I were touring Oregon on vacation when my wife fell in love with the Oregon coast and expressed her desire to me. We later attended my high school reunion in Eastern Oregon and, in casual conversation found a classmate who turned out to be a real estate broker on the Oregon coast. He told us of a property that he felt was just what we wanted. We eventually purchased that five acres in the woods near Pacific City, Oregon.

The land lay idle until we were ready to retire. At that time, I traveled to Oregon to pursue getting a house built while my wife stayed in Maryland to sell our home. One year later, we were finally able to move into our dream home in the woods. We have now lived there for nine years and, God willing, will stay there the rest of our lives.

During a recent bout with health problems, neither of us could/should drive and the nearest grocery is 25 miles away. We momentarily considered assisted living, but we persevered and soon decided we were not ready to leave our dream home. We choose to live in our own home even though circumstances may, at some point, dictate otherwise. We do have a choice.