re: #22 Hecuba’s daughter

It’s usually best to move to where family lives; for years, a close girl friend had resisted entreaties from her children to move from Chicago area to Texas because she didn’t want to leave her friends, but she finally made the move this year. It can be overwhelming to cope simultaneously with the loss of a spouse and a move to a different state — so sometimes it might be preferable to postpone that decision, but you know her best and the right choice is different for each person.

Good luck and best wishes.

My mother says she doesn’t want to live with my sister in California (because she doesn’t want to live where the ground moves—she has a thing against that), nor does she want to move here (because we live out in the middle of nowhere though that’s not exactly true)—though the house across the street from us just went up for sale and we could squeeze out the bucks to help buy it outright (no loan) if needed.

As far as my aunt in Michigan, she and my mother are close in age and friendship (my aunt was married to her brother before he died in 1974), plus the cousin I mention lives in the house I grew up in, and it’s only one mile away, so that might work if we can convince her. Chicago is pretty expensive and her income is limited; our hometown is much less expensive (though has less things around than we do—there are no businesses or public facilities even though it has about two hundred people, whereas my town has a community centre, a public library, a store, and an art school—I don’t think she’d be interested in the gun shop—that said, the shop owner is looking to sell it because of his failing health and maybe she’d like to run a business).