The Move

“Thank you for seeing me again on such short notice,” Joslyn begins hurriedly. Then she pauses and looks at me. “It’s good to see you again after so long. You haven’t changed at all. It must be 10 years.”

“It’s good to see you too, Joselyn. I’m pleased to be able to catch up on your life.”

"Yeah, well lots has happened since I've seen you - I have two sons, I'm a pretty successful elder care attorney - but the funny thing is I'm kind of coming back for the same reason I did before, except in reverse." Then I was miserable about having to leave Wisconsin to move to Boca Raton and now I’m miserable about having to leave Boca to move to Boston. Both times for my husband’s jobs! But I understand. I do. Then he was lucky to get a job teaching history at Florida Atlantic University, but he’s been languishing here and Harvard has offered him a tenure track position. It’s a great opportunity for him.” Pause. “But then there’s me. What about my practice? I’m doing so well here. And somehow I think there’s more of a demand for elder law here than there will be in Boston. And the cold! Brrr. I left the cold when I left Madison. I don’t want to go back to it!”

“So you’re feeling …?”

“Angry. And scared.” Pause. “And sad too. I have a life here. My kids have a life here. There’s a lot to lose.”

“You’re angry at…?”

“My husband. I don’t know why we always have to do what he wants to do. I mean, I shouldn’t say it that way. It’s not like we didn’t talk about it. As I said, I do understand. It’s such a great opportunity for him.”

Listening to Joslyn brings me back to the time I moved from Ann Arbor to Boca Raton 25 years ago, to all the pains of leaving – my friends, my practice and the house I so cherished. I try to shake my feelings and return to Joslyn who continues.

“I try to remind myself that the move to Boca turned out well. So why can’t I assume the same will be true of moving to Boston?”

“Are your parents still alive Joselyn?”

She sighs. “My father died three years ago. He had pancreatic cancer.”

“I’m sorry. And he was the good parent.”

“Yeah. My mother and I have continued to struggle. She needs me more now, so she’s been a little warmer. We were even talking about her moving down here. Obviously that isn’t going to happen.”

“And you feel how about that not happening?”

“Good question.” Pause. “Part of me is relieved, but part is … I don’t know. I guess I’m sad about it.”

“And what exactly are you sad about?”

“I don’t know. I guess it’s like maybe the move would give us another chance. Like maybe it could be different this time. Maybe since she needs me more she’ll be warmer.”

“I notice, Joslyn, that you’re talking a lot about warm and cold. Wisconsin and Boston are cold. Florida is warm. Maybe your mother will be warmer when she’s in Florida. If I remember correctly a lot of your conflict about leaving Wisconsin was leaving your parents, your father because of his ‘warmth’ and your mother because you were afraid if you moved away you’d never, ever get the chance to somehow fix her and finally get the mother you wanted.”

“That’s right! Hmm. So you’re saying maybe that’s still true, maybe I don’t want to give up what will be my last chance to get the mother I want.”

“Yes. It’s like moving from the ‘warmth’ will mean you’ll have to give up forever the hope of getting the mother you never had. It’s again having to give up hope.”

Joslyn eyes fill with tears. “I thought I had already done that.”

“You certainly moved away from that hope when we worked together, but when confronted with lots of new losses, those feelings can resurface. And I’m not saying that all the feelings you’re having are about your mother. Obviously you’re facing real, present day losses – your practice, your friends, lots of things. But I suspect that the relationship with your mother is heightening all these other feelings.”

“I think I’d like to come back and see you for a while. Is that all right?”

“Of course. I imagine you want to say good-bye to me as well.”

“Oh!” Joslyn exclaims. “I hadn’t thought of that. You were my good mother. And yes, I’ll have to say good-bye to you too. That makes me very sad.”   

Losing Home

“I can’t believe I’m going to do it,” Paula says sobbing. “It feels impossible. It’s like I’m killing Robert. But I can’t be killing him because he’s already dead. Why? Why is he dead? Why am I doing this? Why is Karen moving? I can’t. I just can’t. Robert and I lived in that house almost our whole married life. How can I sell it? I just can’t.”

For those of you who read my book, you might remember Paula. She’s the depressed widow I treat during the winters when she leaves her home in Park Slope, Brooklyn to spend time in Florida. Depression has been with Paula most of her life; her husband’s death only made it worse. She hates leaving her home in Brooklyn, even for the winters, venturing south only at the insistence of her daughter, Karen, who, as Paula says, probably had enough of her, and sends her off to her other daughter in Florida. But Karen is now moving to Los Angeles. The plan is for Paula to return north this spring, to put her house on the market and to make a permanent move to south Florida.

“Maybe I shouldn’t,” Paula continues, still weeping. “Maybe I should just stay there by myself. I’ll just have to force myself to get out more, to make friends. I know I’m not very good at that, but I could try,” she says plaintively. “I know that’s not what my daughters want, but it’s my life. I get to do what I want.”

“It is indeed your life, Paula. This is a huge decision for you either way. But I’m glad to hear you say you get to decide for yourself what you want to do.”

“But I can’t. I couldn’t not do what my daughters want. They’d worry about me. I don’t want them to worry about me.”

“I wonder if that’s true, Paula. I suspect you’d kind of like your daughters to worry more about you.”

“That wouldn’t be nice.”

I sigh inwardly. Paula and I have covered this ground more times than I care to remember. “You don’t have to be nice all the time, Paula. And you don’t have to have only good thoughts and good feelings.”

“I guess.” She pauses. “But do you think it’s practical? Do you think I could stay in Brooklyn by myself?”

I smile. “So now you’re going to ask me rather than your daughters what you should do. As you said, you’re an adult. You can make your own decisions. You need to weigh how it would feel to stay in Brooklyn without one of your daughters, as opposed to how it will feel to sell your home.”

“I can’t. I can’t do either one.”

Sadness washes over me. Although Paula’s dependency, indecision and complaints often make working with her difficult for me, this time I feel Paula’s dilemma on a deeply personal level. I remember the tremendous pain I felt about leaving my Michigan home and relocating to south Florida. When my husband’s health tipped the scale in the direction of moving, I remember the questions I asked myself over and over: “How will I walk out of this house for the last time? How can I be making a decision that causes me such intolerable pain?”  

Remembering, I say, “With the exception of your husband’s death, leaving your home may well be the most painful loss you’ve ever experienced. It’s nothing to make light of. Home represents your and Robert’s relationship. Home represents a place of safety and security. It’s “home.” Whether home will be enough without Robert or your daughter, no one can decide but you. You often feel very alone. I don’t know if that aloneness will feel intolerable once Karen has moved. That’s something you’ll have to decide. But if you do decide to move, don’t minimize the pain you’ll feel and don’t get angry with yourself for feeling it.”

“I want Robert,” she says beseechingly. “I want Robert to be here and help me.”  

“I understand, Paula. I wish he could be here for you, but unfortunately that’s not possible.”

“I hate it when you say that. I know it’s true, of course, but I still hate it.”

“I know, Paula. It feels too real when I say it. But it is important for you to hold onto that reality because when you don’t, you’re surprised again and again that he’s dead and it’s like having to begin mourning for him all over again. And right now you have a huge decision to make and you need to make it knowing that Robert isn’t around to help you.” 

Home

“I’ve never done this before,” Susan says anxiously. “But I think my husband will divorce me if I don’t get myself together. Not really, after 40 years of marriage he’s not likely to divorce me, but he’s certainly getting tired of me. Gosh, I’m getting tired of me. I’m sorry, I realize I’m rambling and you don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

“That’s fine,” I say reassuringly to this attractive, well groomed woman who I guess to be in her sixties. “You can tell your story in whatever way feels best to you.”

“Well, we’re originally from Philadelphia. I taught school there, my husband was a successful businessman. We’d been coming down to Florida for several years during the winters – after I retired from teaching – but then two years ago my husband decided he wanted to move down here permanently. I couldn’t believe it! He was willing to leave our children, our grandchildren and our beautiful home, to come to this place! I don’t know. It’s never appealed to me that much. Too plastic. I hope I’m not offending you.”

I am flooded with more thoughts and feelings than Susan could ever know. I have heard variations of this story countless times since moving to south Florida 20 years ago. Almost invariably the man of the couple wants to move and the woman doesn’t. Almost invariably the husband loves it and has adjusted very well, while the wife continues to long for home. 

Those of you who have read my book, Love and Loss, will also know that it is my story, with the added complication of my husband’s health problems pushing us towards a warmer climate. Still, it was definitely not a decision I came to easily. For four consecutive winters I flew weekly between Ann Arbor, Michigan and Key Largo, Florida, continuing to maintain my full-time practice in Ann Arbor. I obsessed and obsessed until my husband’s heart attack when I realized I didn’t want to be separated from him more than absolutely necessary. And so we moved. And I started my practice over in Boca Raton.

Susan continues. “My husband says that it’s been over a year already, that we’ve already gone back several times to visit the children and that my daughter and her family have come to visit us. He wants me to stop moping around. He wants me to start enjoying my retirement, to get out there and make friends. But all the women do here is play cards or golf and I don’t do either. But he’s right, I know I should start making a life for myself here, get involved in politics, volunteer work, something! But I’m not motivated. I feel too sad.”

As Susan speaks I feel myself going back to the time shortly after my move. It was awful. I longed for the friends, patients, and, most especially, my home on the lake that I had left behind. I felt as though I had a wall around me, protecting me from the intensity of the losses, but also disconnecting me from being fully involved in my present life. I had the advantage of my work and a network of professional colleagues, but the wall limited my ability to take in the good that existed around me.     

“Tell me about your home in Philadelphia,” I say to Susan.

Tears immediately run down her cheeks. Speaking is difficult. “It was perfect. My son built it for us. He’s an architect. He built it exactly as we wanted: wood floors, cathedral ceilings, glass everywhere. There were woods all around us. It was like living in the trees, like a tree house.”

I am back in my own pain, thinking about the house that my husband built for us, visualizing sitting at the breakfast table looking through the leaves of the graceful elm tree to the lake beyond. 

With more empathy than Susan can ever know, I say, “You’re talking about giving up ‘home,’ Susan, giving up a place of peace and safety. That’s a tremendous loss. It’s not something that can easily be forgotten. Or replaced.”   

“Oh!” she exclaims. “You understand! And you don’t think I’m being foolish. That’s such a relief. Now I can cry. I can cry without feeling silly.”

I sit with Susan as she cries, fighting back my own tears.