I promised my parents they would never go to a nursing home. I made the same promise to my wife's parents and I had every intention of keeping those promises no matter what it took, no matter what it cost, no matter what I had to arrange. They were not going to a nursing home period.

My promise was the result of watching two of my aunts move out of their homes and into my grandfather's house and spend five years taking care of him. He had spent one week in a nursing home, but they could not stand the thought of such a thing, so they moved in.

Looking back I can see that they paid far too big of a price to give this care. Both of their husbands died within five years of my grandfather, so five of the last ten years of their marriage was spent apart because they could not stand the idea of a nursing home. 

They became the heroines of our family and the model for my declaration and promise.

My mother-In-Law died in a nursing home. My father died in a nursing home. My mother died in an assisted living center. What happened to my promise? Actually I kept my promise they just outlived it. They lived beyond my ability to care for them. In the case of my father and mother-in-law, the kind of care they needed could no longer be provided in my home. My mother chose to live in a retirement home and then an assisted living center rather than live with us even though she knew she was welcomed to do so.

Our longer lives mean we now live with health problems that once took our lives, but it also means we can demand so much more care than before. Modern medicine kept my father and mother-in-law alive with some quality of life many years longer than would have been possible just a few years ago. In both cases we gave care in the home as long a possible, but finally had to face the reality of our limits.

We set parameters with my father. We decided when he could not give enough help to mother so she could change his diaper, that would be the time. When the day came, I said, "now we must tell him. We will not lie and say it is only for a little while, we owe him the truth." The family scattered like a bunch of quail and left the telling to me. That was one of the hardest things I have ever done, but if I loved him, I had to provide the care he needed even if we could no longer give that care. 

I learned that love is doing what people need, not just what they want. Love is doing what people need, not just what we want. We had to face the guilt and the sense of letting him down. We had to face the fact that he was not as happy in the facility as he was at home. The decision was hard. The telling him was harder. Knowing that he was where he never wanted to be was tough. Maybe the hardest was that I had promised him this would never happen.

I am walking with a family in a similar position right now. The wife is killing herself in care, but will not consider a nursing placement. He has gone through surgery and was in a rehabilitation type nursing facility, hated every moment of it, and let the whole world know about his displeasure. Neither he nor the wife like having outside help in the home and manage to run off anyone his children arrange for. When I talk to the children they cannot get past not wanting to do anything that will displease the father. So the whole family is trapped and will be until they can get past the "but I promised" and do what is needed instead of just what is wanted. Tough love is never a walk in the park is it? 

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