Dorothy and Dale Curteman watched the retirement apartments going up near their home of 22 years in Prairie Village, Kan., and decided it was time to check them out. They took a tour. They had a long meeting with a coordinator.
“And then we would go back home and sit in our breakfast room, in our family room, and would say, ‘How can we leave this?'” Dorothy said.
That was five years ago. They knew in their hearts that the house was more work than they wanted at this stage in their lives, more chore than joy. But leaving it for good?
So instead of making a quick decision, they leisurely investigated their options, even taking a trip to a retirement community in Texas. They eventually settled on John Knox Village in Lee’s Summit, Kan., and, both now in their upper 70s, made the move last July.
“By doing it over a period of five years, we made it less painful,” Curteman said.
You raise your family. You fill your home with the simple stories of life: youngsters’ birthday parties, the pingpong matches in the basement, the shouting matches over supper.
You also fill it with stuff, lots of stuff: the antique sideboard you saved years for, the vacation knickknacks, the kids’ paintings framed in the hall.
Then you blink, and you’re old. The house grows bigger, the repairs more frequent and expensive.
There’s no emotional switch you can flip and effortlessly move on. There is, however, a way to make the transition from the family home to a retirement community easier, both in a practical sense and emotionally, according to residents who made the move last year.
Their chief pieces of advice were these: Start thinking about the move early, while you’re in fairly good health and able to make your own choices. And take plenty of time, even years, to find the right setting.
Doris and Marshall Bliss, sweethearts since they were teenagers, left their house of 35 years in Mission Hills, Kan., last summer. They moved into an apartment in Kansas City.
“One reason it wasn’t so traumatic was because we made up our minds ourselves,” Doris Bliss said. “We loved our house, and it served its purpose. But we made up our minds to move and we did it.”
The Blisses (she is 79, he is 81) didn’t want to make the decision during a medical emergency. And they didn’t want to put off a move so long that their children would have to make all the arrangements.
Experts say the more control older people have over their move, the happier an experience it will be for them. The loss of decision-making power can be devastating. In fact, older people, like most people, often feel a great sense of accomplishment after the move, even if they were ambivalent about it beforehand.
“I hear from a lot of people, ‘It was a hassle but we did it,'” said Launa Boston, who gives talks on the subject. “They’re proud. They walked up that mountain, they’re at the top and they can see the valley. It builds self-esteem.”
Boston, the social services director at John Knox Village, said it’s important to understand that moves often involve heartbreak.
“Where you live is a part of your identity,” Boston said. “Moving is giving up a part of that identity, a little bit of you, especially when you’ve been someplace 30 or 40 years.”
Moving also often means giving up many of your things, because people generally move to smaller quarters. Planning ahead allows older people to keep control of that process, too.
The Blisses took the furniture and other items from the house they wanted for their apartment, then invited their son and daughter to divide up the remainder. There were a few discussions about some of the items, Doris said, but agreement came quickly.
“It was very peaceably done,” she said.
The Curtemans opened the family home to their children and grandchildren after deciding what they would take to Lee’s Summit. After they made their choices, the Curtemans held an estate sale.
“It blew my mind,” Dorothy said. “I didn’t realize how many people went to estate sales. It was not terribly painful, to tell you the truth. Our children and grandchildren had taken the stuff they wanted. It seemed so natural.”
Something else helped, Dorothy said. Before they emptied the house, the real estate agent took pictures all around the house, from shots of each room to pieces of furniture and arrangements. Then she organized them in a photo album for them.
“It’s a beautiful, beautiful memory,” Dorothy said.
The Curtemans chose a house in a retirement community in the suburbs. The Blisses picked a two-bedroom apartment in the center closer to Kansas City amenities. They also take advantage of the center’s dining room for supper. Besides such personal preferences, older adults must consider a broad range of services and facilities (and prices) when deciding on a retirement community, said Tina Uridge, adult care specialist for Heart of America Family Services.
Some communities offer everything from independent living through full nursing care and generally charge entrance fees in the tens of thousands of dollars. Others may offer only certain levels of care.
After getting an overview, Uridge suggests, visit at least three to five facilities.
Also, she said, have a lawyer or trusted individual help review contracts and ask detailed questions: Will there be cost-of-living fee increases? How many meals are included? Are there extra charges for help with bathing or with medication reminders?
In deciding whether to move from the family home, older adults need to consider their physical and emotional well-being, Uridge said. Physically, they might not be able to keep up with home maintenance. Emotionally, they may find themselves isolated as lifelong neighbors move or die. The lack of socializing can lead to depression.
A recent trend, Uridge said, is for older adults to move to a new city to be closer to their adult children.
That was the case for Flora Archer, and it has happened twice. As the wife of an Army officer, Archer already knew a lot about relocating. She had lived all over the country and overseas.
When her husband needed nursing-home care, she moved from the East Coast to Louisiana to be closer to her daughter. She told her children she was closing the house and offered them the art pieces, Oriental rugs and other items the couple had accumulated from all over the world.
“Those are just things to me now,” she said. “I didn’t want anybody quibbling over them when I’m dead.”
When her husband died, she thought about moving back to North Carolina, where the couple had lived for 17 years and where she still knew friends.
But her son in the Kansas City area persuaded Archer, who is 82, to go there, and she decided on a duplex at John Knox Village last summer. She took her cats, Jezebel and Noel, with her. She has enjoyed making new friends and exploring the landscape, although driving in a new place has been a challenge, she said.
Accepting help from adult children and other relatives is important, Boston said, just as it’s important for children to step up and offer help without taking over the process. Some adult children are pushy. Others, she said, are so caught up in their emotions they’re paralyzed: They can’t bear the idea of their parents growing old, and they can’t emotionally handle dismantling the family home.
“My theory is, you have to,” Boston said. “It’s our responsibility to help our parents be the best people they can be.”
Change may seem unwelcome to people in their 70s, but it actually can enliven their lives, a move from a place that is comfortable but may lack stimulation, inspiration. Studies have suggested that the services and activities (travel opportunities, book discussion clubs, cultural outings) actually may be lengthening lives, Uridge said.
“You meet new people, (engage in) new activities. It broadens your horizons,” Boston said. “It doesn’t hurt anyone to find out there are new opportunities to get involved.”
Dorothy Curteman misses the familiarity of the old neighborhood from time to time, but she couldn’t be more comfortable with the move.
“I think people get so uptight about making a change in their lives,” she said. “Actually, it’s so natural. You don’t need to be frightened.”
