As my father aged, it became more difficult for him to take care of his home by himself. He did not like the idea of having strangers come to help him do things so hiring a lawn service or cleaning company was out of the question. None of my siblings or I lived close enough that it was easy for us to go over there to help him do the yard work or clean the house, but we managed to take turns going to help him. Everything was going well, until he fell while trying to stand on a chair to change a light bulb. He said he did not think it was right to call one of us just to change the bulb, but it was the only light in the room and he wanted to be able to read. Luckily, he did not get seriously injured when he fell, but it gave all of us quite a scare.

As a family, we discussed finding a different living situation for him and finally came to the conclusion that it would be best for him to move into the spare room in our house so that someone would at least be close by if he needed something done. However, that left us with the problem of what to do with all of his furniture and belongings that he had collected over the years. We managed to sell some of the furniture, but there were some things that he was not willing to part with. We suggested that these things be placed in a self storage unit close to our home. That way he would still be able to have access to them and they would not be taking up any of the limited storage space that we had at our home.