Page 12 - Amarillo Senior Link Magazine Winter 2020- Online Magazine
P. 12
SENIOR RESOURCES
A SWEET
PLACE
FOR A
Happy
Ending
By Jelaine Workman
hen you realize one and moved to
of your parents needs Lubbock. Her dad
Wmore care than the other was a brick layer,
can provide, you face some big and her mom was
decisions. This was the case for Dee a hairdresser,
Morelos. although she
preferred to stay
Her mother, Joyce, was from Ralls, home and care
TX and her dad, Harrold, from for her family.
Crosbyton, TX. Harrold was in the This last April, Harrold and Joyce but physically, he just could not do
service when he met Joyce on the celebrated 67 years of marriage; they it. Dee works full time and couldn’t
square in Ralls, but he neglected to had raised three children. When be with her parents all day, but she
get her phone number. However, he Dee was born, her mom was 32 could see Joyce’s quality of life was
knew she was a phone operator, so years old and her sisters were 16 and diminishing daily.
he dialed “0”, managed to find her 14.
and asked her out on a date. At that point, Dee began the search
At age 86, Joyce had been declining for a place for her mother to live.
One of Harrold’s uncles moved to for the past year. She had fallen She was seeking a smaller facility
Amarillo, so Harrold moved here and had become more forgetful; with a homey feeling, affordable
to work with him and drove back Dee felt like her 90-year-old father and convenient for her dad to visit
and forth to Ralls to see Joyce on the just couldn’t take care of his wife at when he wanted. Since her mom’s
weekends. They married in 1953 home – not that he didn’t want to, dementia had become worse, she
12 Amarillo Senior Link
