{"doi":"10.1111/jgs.17949","title":"It's not home","abstract":"As I rounded the last curve before my home after a long day at the hospital, ambulance lights pulsed into the midnight darkness. My octogenarian neighbor, Ann, had on a rebreather mask and was being loaded into the ambulance. I offered to drive her husband, Lester, to the hospital but he declined, stating that his daughter would arrive shortly. A week later, I stopped at their house. Ann was home and looking much better. She told me her diagnosis was “diastolic heart failure,” my career focus, and that she had liked her doctor, who had been one of my best trainees. I kept my visit short, but urged them to call me anytime I could help. Thereafter, I visited Lester and Anne every few months. I love talking with older people, and as the only physician in the rural neighborhood, I felt a responsibility toward my most senior, vulnerable neighbors. At the time, Lester was 83 and Anne was 80. Both were retired from successful careers and had been church leaders and community volunteers. Together, they had raised seven children, all of them independent and successful, and had entertained many grandchildren at their lake home. Their beautiful home was on a large peninsula with a sweeping 270-degree view of the lake. They loved sitting on their deck watching the egrets, herons, osprey, ducks, and geese (Figure 1). They had traveled, but could not imagine wanting to live anywhere else in the world. Over the next 10 years, I came to know them well and joined in the celebrations of Lester's 90th birthday and their 65th anniversary. As each year passed, there were subtle declines in their abilities to care for themselves and each other. Then Lester had an injurious fall and spent several months in a rehabilitation facility. Not long after, they declared they were no longer able to drive, shop, or attend church and were receiving home care. I wondered how much longer they'd be able to stay in their beloved home. Recently, Ann called me requesting “a last visit.” Sitting in their living room, I held her hand as she and Lester told me, with teary eyes, that they had decided to move to an apartment in an assisted living facility. I listened as she and Lester took turns telling me how much their home meant to them, and how much they were going to miss the breathtaking views, seeing their grandchildren swim in the lake, and visiting with neighbors, including me. And what would they do with their dog, Casey? I held back tears as I listened silently. My heart ached for them. Listening to Lester and Anne mourning their pending losses, I thought of me and my wife, years in the future, perhaps having to make the same heart-wrenching move. My wife and I had moved several times, but always for something that we perceived promised a better future. This type of move was different. As I trudged from their home to mine, I gazed at my own house. We built it after I was promoted to full professor. It is our dream home and we hope our retirement home. Walking into the great room after a difficult day at work and seeing the lake come into full, magnificent view is better than any anxiolytic or sedative. Our home has been a ‘retreat’ for others as well, including hundreds of visitors, family, and friends. One day during construction, my next-door neighbor sat beside me as we peered at the top. A few weeks earlier, there had been nothing, and now the new house was towering over us. “Kitzman,” he said, “You've done well. Someone else is going to enjoy living in that house someday.” It was startling to hear, but I realized he was reminding me that our time is fleeting and our hold on our possessions is tenuous. I visited Lester and Ann frequently as they prepared for their move. They discussed the exhausting process of choosing from among the hundreds of precious possessions in their spacious home the few that they could take with them, and what they would do with all the rest. A profound sense of loss and finality hung in the air. I gently encouraged them to envis","journal":"Journal of the American Geriatrics Society","year":2022,"id":295505,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9573,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":260522,"name":"Dalane W. Kitzman","orcid":"0009-0000-5274-0826","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":1,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:31:08.861377Z","pmid":"35775441","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}