mom lives alone in another city -- concerned about her as she gets older

[Anonymous]

It should be your mother's decision whether she wants to move. For my grandmother, we hired a nurse to visit her every other day. Eventually she came every day and prepared meals and did some cleaning.
Check to see if there are services for the eldery who are on a fixed income. My neighbor was able to take advantage of such services in Arlington county and had someone check on her twice a week.

[Anonymous]

MY parents moved three hours away from all of my siblings when I was 10, and I moved back to the area I was originally from when I was 18 (I'm a lot younger than the others,) so none of my siblings live near my mom. My step father died two years ago and now my mom is there alone, on 2 acres in a rural area where she has to drive EVERYWHERE and has to depend on others to help her with things like yard work and taking the trash cans to the end of the road.

She had to have back surgery about 18 mo ago, then tripped and fell on someone's rug on Christmas Day this past year and fractured her back. It's pretty nerve racking having her up there knowing she's dependent on church friends to help out but ultimately it's her choice to be there. It was their choice to move there and their choice to stay there. My family isn't close, probably at least partly due to not really having a "matriarch" who lives nearby. All my sibs and their kids just aren't going to load up and drive three hours for Easter Dinner or whatever.Everyone is just going their separate ways.

Anyway, at 73, I figure she's earned the right to live where she wants and to face whatever hardships that entails. It's her life to live as mine is mine so I just have to let it go.