Last November, after Nathan and I moved into our new house, I wrote that Dad was next. At the time, I had no idea "next" would mean another ten months.
When we bought this house, one of the biggest reasons was that it gave Dad a place of his own within our home. After his health problems last year, it had become increasingly clear that living alone nearly an hour away from us probably wasn't sustainable forever. We found a house with a separate living space, made plans for some updates, extended the driveway so he would have his own parking area, and figured we would get him settled once he was ready.
The physical space was the relatively easy part. Getting from "someday Dad will live here" to actually moving him in has been a much longer process.
Forty Years Doesn't Fit Into a Few Boxes
From January through April, Nathan and I spent nearly every weekend at Dad's house packing.
My old bedroom became our first major project. Over the years, it had turned into a storage room for just about everything my parents didn't know what else to do with. Dressers were filled to the brim with old bills and paperwork, hundreds of photographs, keepsakes, knickknacks and personal belongings. That one room alone took us five or six weeks.
Then came the kitchen. A large hutch was packed with things that hadn't seen the light of day in 10, 15 or even 20 years. We went through cupboards, the living room, outdoor belongings and what felt like an endless supply of boxes.
There was another layer to all of it, too. My parents were smokers, so nearly everything we decided to keep had to be cleaned once we brought it here. Packing something didn't mean the work on it was finished.
Some things went into the trash. Some were donated. Some came home with us. And some required a conversation with Dad before they could go anywhere. Those conversations weren't always easy.
Something that looked to me like another piece of furniture taking up space might have a completely different meaning to him. He wanted time to go through things himself, which I understood. But Dad also tires easily now, so what might take me an afternoon could take him several days. That difference in pace has probably been one of the hardest parts of this entire process.
Waiting Until He Was Ready
I wanted Dad to move sooner than he did. But wanting that and making it happen were two different things.
My mom died on June 2, 2025, and Dad had heard the advice most people hear after losing a spouse: don't make any major life decisions for a year.
By this spring, he was finally starting to get used to living alone. At almost exactly the same time, though, he was also confronting the reality that living alone was getting harder.
He had a bad fall outside over the winter and struggled to get himself back up. Then he fell again in early July and nearly lost another toe. He knew he didn't want to spend another winter in that house.
There were also months of uncertainty about how he would sell it. He considered listing it traditionally, then explored cash buyers and investors. Offers came and went. Timelines stretched. Eventually, he accepted an offer that would close on September 18.
And suddenly, after months of waiting, we had a little more than three weeks.
From Waiting to Racing
I had intentionally put some of the remaining projects in Dad's space on hold until I knew he was really moving. Once we had a date, everything started at once.
We completely rebuilt the shower, including plumbing and electrical work, and added grab bars. We replaced the toilet. We removed the apartment-sized washer and dryer and turned that area back into usable closet space, which meant drywall, plaster, paint, shelving and new carpet.
We worked on the refrigerator water line. We cleaned furniture. We replaced ceiling tiles and recessed lighting. We hung pictures, mirrors and televisions. Then we rented a U-Haul and brought over the larger pieces Dad wanted to keep.
And then came the boxes. I unpacked his kitchen things. His living room things. Family photos. Keepsakes. Clothes. And books. So many books.
Dad had eight enormous boxes of them. Halfway through, I had already filled two entire bookcases. By the time I finished, we had books tucked into multiple shelves throughout his space. Every item had to be unpacked, wiped down, cleaned and given some kind of home.
Somewhere in the middle of all this, we also had to furnish the place. Our first attempt at furniture shopping didn't go particularly well. Just walking through the parking lot and across a large showroom wore Dad out, and we learned that some of the furniture we were looking at wouldn't even be available for months.
Eventually, we found a loveseat. Then a bed. Then a television. This week, they all started arriving.
The new bed is made. The shower is finished. The television and sound system are working. The loveseat arrived. His clothes are hanging in the closet. Family photos and things that matter to him are beginning to fill the space. It looks less like a project now and more like his home. Even our cats seem to approve.
The Work You Don't See in a Moving Truck
The physical work has only been part of it. There has also been a constant administrative checklist running in the background.
Change the mailing address. Cancel the electric service. Cancel satellite television. Arrange for Lincare to pick up my mom's old oxygen tanks. Transfer the pharmacy. Update Dad's driver's license and vehicle information.
A few days ago, I found myself filling out his USPS change-of-address request while we were driving back to his house because it had been sitting on his list for a week.
There have been moments when I've been frustrated. Last weekend, we went to Dad's house specifically to reduce how much would be left for move day. I could see the amount of stuff remaining and knew we had limited room in the vehicles, especially with a cat and all of his supplies coming with us. But Dad wanted to go through everything himself.
"Can I just pack the bathroom?"
No. He wanted to look through it first. And eventually, he was tired.
I remember thinking: I have done everything I can to keep moving day from becoming complete chaos, and somehow it may still become complete chaos.
That's the reality of moving someone who is older and moves at a different pace than you do. There's the practical deadline, and then there's the person standing in front of you who deserves some say in how his own life gets packed into boxes. Both things are true at the same time.
I've also realized how much responsibility I feel for whatever doesn't get done. If something gets left behind, forgotten, not canceled, not transferred or not ready, part of me immediately feels like I should have caught it. I'm working on that.
And to Dad's credit, he has been doing his part. Earlier this week, he told me he had been on the phone for hours taking care of the satellite cancellation and oxygen pickup. He had laundry being dropped off and bags ready for Goodwill. He told me he was about to go nuts from all the calls. I was impressed.
And Then Move Day Came
For all the work we did trying to keep moving day from becoming complete chaos, it was still overwhelming.
There was more left in Dad's house than we realized. Closets still needed to be emptied. The kitchen still had things in it. There were boxes and donations that hadn't been picked up as planned, along with plenty of other odds and ends we somehow still had to deal with.
By the end, Nathan and I reached the point where we were putting things into bags, loading what we could and taking donations ourselves. Some of this might have been easier if we'd had Nathan's truck over the past few months, but it has been out of commission since June while we've been dealing with a major repair.
I had spent weeks trying to keep Thursday from becoming overwhelming.
We got through it. Dad got here. His things got here. And by the time I finally went to bed that night, it was 1:30 in the morning.
Then Friday morning, as Dad was getting ready to leave for closing, we couldn't find Trix.
We searched Dad's entire space. Then I searched the rest of our house, which is no small undertaking. Closets, beds, bathrooms, the garage, behind furniture. Nothing. Dad was distraught, and eventually he had to leave for closing without knowing where his cat was.
Hours later, I found Trix in the bottom drawer of Dad’s dresser while I was putting clothes away. We still have no idea how he got in there. The dresser has a back, and the opening underneath is so narrow that I never would have thought to look there.
Somehow, he had squeezed himself into the smallest possible hiding place and stayed completely silent while we searched the entire house.
Of course he did...
Ready Enough
Trix was found. But there was still one cat problem we never managed to solve before move day.
We never found a home for Lily, my mom’s cat.
With Trix now here and five cats of our own already in the house, keeping Lily here permanently wasn’t realistic. I posted about her multiple times, had people share the posts and reached out personally. People suggested rescues and groups, only for me to discover they didn’t accept cats in her situation.
For now, she’ll stay at our house a little longer while we figure out what comes next.
I wish I had a better ending to that part of the story. I don't. And maybe that is fitting, because very little about this move has been tidy.
After almost a year of talking about this, Dad moved in. The house he shared with my mom and called home for decades now belongs to someone else.
I spent months wishing we could get to this point sooner. Then, once Dad finally made the decision, everything happened so quickly that I found myself wishing for more time.
There are still pictures to hang. There will be boxes to unpack. I’m sure we’ll discover things we forgot, things that don’t fit and things we never thought about. And while Dad is officially here now, we haven’t lived enough of this part of the story yet to know what it will look like.
For now, I’m looking around at the books on his shelves, his clothes hanging in the closet, the pictures of people he loves, his new bed, the shower we rebuilt for him, and a loveseat that one of our cats has already claimed.
Ten months ago, I wrote that Dad was next.
Next is finally here.
