The 9th anniversary of my father’s death is coming up. It had been my intention to buy my parents’ house in Sun City West, Arizona.
One of my (four) sisters, a retired nurse, lives around the corner. She moved there with her husband to care for our ailing mother.
The expectation had been that Mom had a few years to go, but fate was working from a different timetable, and she lasted only a few more months. Dad had another twelve years left in him.
Buying the Arizona house would have required agreeing on a fair market value with my five siblings and paying them for their shares of the property. I didn’t buy the house, but money wasn’t the problem. In fact, it sold for $15,000 less than the figure I was proposing.
There was no single reason why I decided to drop the idea of becoming a “snow bird,” flying from Boston to Phoenix for the winter. The long flight time between Boston and Phoenix was a consideration. Another was the regional popularity of Donald Trump, who was in his first term.
The tie-breaker was melanoma being diagnosed in my scalp. The dermatologist who did the (very significant) cutting suggested that I wasn’t a good candidate for regular exposure to the Arizona sun.
A couple of years later, when Covid hit, I was greatly relieved not having to worry about a second home 2,000 miles away. However, I still ponder what might have been.
Sun City West is an ideal location for running (after the sun sets), with countless, perfectly flat, street routes to map out. Something I certainly would have been interested in doing is joining the retirement community’s radio station, KSCW.
streamdb6web.securenetsystems.net/cirrusencore/KSCW
