Heroism Continued: My Mother's Transition

Richard stayed in Florida for a week - completely being there for my mother, a woman who isn't his mother and who is very difficult to spend too much time with -- while I slowly climbed out of a pain relapse back home.

During that week, they visited three assisted living facilities. My mother truly liked one of them, and she does not like many things. Richard went back to the one she liked and asked the owner every question on every checklist I emailed him. He did all the financial maneuvering, including having them remove the carpet in her apartment and replace it with wooden floors. He got all the papers signed and helped her pack up her belongings.

Within six days after he arrived, my mother moved into the next phase of her life in an assisted living facility.

He did all this with no whining and while shielding me from descriptions of the worst of her behaviors. When I told him he was amazing or heroic, he said with utter sincerity, "I don't see what you're seeing, but thanks for the compliment."

He makes me want to be a better person.

Thank you for listening to my Richard admiration for two posts. I know not everyone has as supportive a partner, whether you're ill or not. And, honestly, we didn't always know how to be genuinely supportive to each other. It took love and several years of couples therapy to lower our issues and learn how to speak and listen to some hard truths.

And btw - my mother who barely left her condo for two years; who had no social contacts other than my father (who died six months ago) and her brother; whose main activities were watching Law & Order on TV and berating my ailing father for what she experienced as his attempts to control her -- spent her first evening in her new home listening to the live music that happens every evening, and dancing for a half hour with a "gentleman."