When God Closes A Door

Somewhere, He opens a window.

Turn the clock back a year. My mother-in-law fell off the steps at church and landed smack on her head. Her eye was black, she had a goose egg on her forehead, and the whole side of her face and neck turned black and purple. She didn't leave the house for weeks, and we wondered if this was the beginning of a downhill trend for MIL.

After she healed, she's done well. However, we'd been in the beginnings of our plans to move across sate, and her tumble put the skids to it. We were not sure if we could leave her here alone.

The last year has also been a tough one for Hubby. Boss has made a lot of demands and it's difficult for Hubby to discuss them without being face to face. He's worked late into the night and almost every weekend while I do what I can to help him, cook, ignore the housework, take DD where she needs to go (which sometimes is a lot of places that aren't very close), and on and on.

A few weeks ago, Hub said this has to stop. We either move there, or he finds another job and we move somewhere else. The other job thing didn't work out very well, so it was settled that we would move there.

We weren't sure how MIL would take the news. I mostly expected her to dig in her heels and tell us she wasn't going to leave her house and then take us on a guilt cruise.

Here's what happened today:

We went down to MIL's with the intention of doing some maintenance on her two little televisions, followed by a heart-to-heart. After the tv ordeal was concluded and we all sat down in the living room, MIL said, "I want to tell you what I've been thinking." She proceeded to say that she and one of her lady friends who is also up in years have decided that they are going to go into a retirement community.

Really? Seriously?

MIL said that after her fall, she realized that she could get sick or have another accident in her house and not be able to let anyone know that she needed help. She told us that she wanted to move to a retirement village that also had nursing and skilled nursing facilities so that she'd never have to be moved again, she would just go from unit to unit as needed, and she could stay there until the end.

Is that not cool???

Hub told her our story, that we were going to move west, so she said right then, "Then I'll go to Oklahoma City." She'll also look into any facilities that are closer to us, but ultimately I think she wants to go with her friend yet be close to us.

What we feared would be an altercation with hurt feelings and tears has actually worked itself out. While we were feeling helpless after she fell last year, it made her see that she's getting into the years where she will need help nearby. Her tumble that slammed the door shut a year ago has opened a big window.

How awesome is that?