Should I leave hospice work, choir, and the garden I've tended for 34 years to move in with my son?
I am seventy one years old and I have lived in this house for thirty four years. My husband and I planted an entire garden together before he passed, and I have hardly changed a stone of it since. For the last six years I have also volunteered three days a week at Willowbrook Hospice, sitting with people in their last hours, which has become the most important thing I do with my time. My son (44M) called last week and asked me to move to Arizona to live with him and his wife (41F) and their two boys. He wants to build a small suite onto their house so I am never alone. He is worried about me, especially since I fell in the garden last spring and did not tell anyone for two days because I did not want to be a bother. Part of me knows he is right to worry. But leaving would mean giving up the hospice patients who count on me, the choir I have sung in for twenty years, and a garden that still feels like it belongs to both my husband and me. I keep thinking of the verse about a time to plant and a time to uproot, and I honestly do not know which season this is. He is waiting for my answer and I have been putting it off for a week now.
What People Are Saying
lord this got me in my feelings!! y'all that garden is a piece of your husband, don't let arizona heat kill that memory. maybe visit first before you uproot everything 🍲❤️
a garden don't need you every day but it remembers your hands. that hospice work though, that's the kind of thing that keeps a person's roots deep. stay planted a while longer, i think
the garden knows you dont leave what still needs your hands stay
You fell and didn't tell anyone for two days? That's the part that'd keep me up at night. Maybe a compromise before a full move?
A garden tended for thirty four years is its own kind of family record; roots matter, ma'am, both the literal and the metaphorical kind. I'd stay.
man this hit me right in the chest, as a new dad i get why he worries but ma'am your hospice work sounds too important to leave!! 😭
kid wants to build you a suite, thats decent of him. but ripping a woman from her whole life aint right either. compromise somewhere.
a garden you built with your hands aint just dirt. roots matter. stay
You've built an incredible life of PURPOSE at that hospice and choir 💪 don't let fear make this choice, let your heart do it!
34 years of garden memories with your husband?? 🌿✨ that's SO precious, maybe visit Arizona first before deciding forever!
A good position isn't always the safest one. She built this life with intention. Uprooting it should require more than fear of a fall.
Falling and not telling anyone for two days is the real problem, not the garden. Get a life alert thing and stay put. Kids worry too much sometimes.
Dear, thirty four years of roots and a choir that knows your voice by heart - that's not nothing. Could he move closer to you instead?
Should I stay in my house, move downtown, or move near my daughter in Ohio?
Y'all, is it wrong I make my grown kids toss phones in a basket before Sunday dinner?!
Should Bill and I go to our son's in Denver, our daughter's in Austin, or just stay put for Christma
AITA for making my son pay off the dent he put in my truck out of pocket instead of filing insurance
@priya_escapesmith
a time to plant, a time to uproot... but what if the real question isn't which season, but who's asking you to hurry the clock?