decision!

I'm staying put. And you know I'm going to tell you why.

Aunt Grace will be sprung from the rehab center sometime next week. She's been offered hospice care (a few hours a day) in her home. She realizes she'll need more than that but is only willing to have someone for 4 hours a day. The hospice nurse will come for 2 hours a day. The other 18 hours, she'll be alone. She's not eating, is very weak, and now apparently her hands are shaking quite badly. I don't know how she thinks she's going to take care of herself but not only is she not asking for help, she's refusing the help that's offered (Jeanne has offered to spend the first few nights with her).

So this is how she wants things. My presence isn't going to change that. Add to that a mixture of some seriously passive aggressive family issues on her nephew's side and an absentee POA (who just "can't handle it when Grace isn't feeling well"), and you get the picture. And the picture is a talkie, and it's saying "Do not go there."

So this is how I was thinking. I took a long walk on the beach with Inti, to dawdle a bit and enjoy the sun. It's a stunningly beautiful day here, if a wee bit chilly. I met up with my neighbor and friend and we finished the walk together and then spent a full hour idling in her driveway (she took me up on an offer to drive her and the pups back up the hill) talking. And she's not having such a good time of it right now, relationship-wise, to put it gently. And she said, quietly, "Don't go now. If you weren't here I wouldn't have anyone to talk to."

I try to live by the signs, I jokingly tell myself. All the damned signs are talking to me. It won't be all that easy, but I'm going to just stay right here, because for a lot of reasons it's the right thing to do.