The house that Bob and Bettye built

October 24, 2002

Love your house stories! Thanks for sharing them. Mom and dad built their

dream house together almost 20 years ago. It is on Galveston Bay and they

wake up to sunrise over the water each morning outside their bedroom

windows. Due to flood plane issues, all the primary living space is

upstairs -- on two different levels no less. The entry is slightly

elevated, the garage is at ground level, and then the downstairs is lowest

of all, so the house is built on five levels. Seemed like a good idea at

the time!

Room by room and piece by peace, the house has been changed and rearranged

to accommodate mom's needs.

As mom's disability has progressed, her world has gotten smaller and

smaller. Going up and down the stairs went out the window long ago, so she

is now limited to three only rooms and the back porch... when the

temperature is mid 70's or lower which is not often here in Houston. Walls

were ripped out and doors enlarged so she could navigate her power chair on

the one level left to her. The kitchen island was removed along with

several counters to make room for the chair. Most of the walls, appliances,

and furniture are gouged and scarred because her navigation skills were

about as good as you would expect from someone who had the coordination of a

drunken sailor on a three day pass. Beautiful and breakable things went out,

utilitarian and sturdy things took their places. A hoyer lift just doesn't

come in on my list of graceful furnishings.

Part of the den on the highest floor was converted to an elevator. Goodbye

oak parquet floor. Hello homemade elevator built by my engineering father

who is impecable in mechanical design but has no time to consider asthetics.

The switch for the elevator is on the end of a cable that hanges from the

top of the shaft... one wall of the elevator is missing to allow the cable

to drop down into reach. Someday dad is going to finish the project... when

he gets some spare time. We have a portable ramp that we must prop over the

stairs to get mom up to the level where the elevator is if we need to get

her out of the house, and a portable generator to run the elevator in case

of power outage (such as in a hurricane).

The lovely yard my mom treasured and tended went to weeds long ago. Who has

time to take care of flowers? We barricaded the stairways with plywood or

2x12's at times because mom's driving wasn't reliable enough for us to be

sure she wouldn't drive off the edge even though she insisted that she was

in total control (sound familiar? LOL)

All that to say that mom and dad technically didn't have to give up their

dream house, and yet they did. And like the rest of you, we discovered that

in fact a Hoyer Lift really IS a very beautiful thing because it enabled mom

and dad to continue to their independant life together even after dad

fractured his spine lifting mom in and out of her Jazzy.

And like the rest of you, we discovered that each thing is important in its

own time. The house at its splendid best was a joy to us all. Today's joy

is seeing the twinkle in my dad's eyes and the smile on my mom's face when

he comes back for a third good-bye kiss before heading off to run errands

and the knowledge that the winch/sling/cable apparatus hanging from their

bedroom ceiling (eyesore though it may be) enables them to sleep side by

side holding hands each night just as they have for the past 51 1/2 years.

Pameal Womack

October 24, 2002