Why I’m Bringing My Mum to Live With Us — Before It’s Too Late

As you read this, I’m making the 26-hour journey back to the UK.

I’m not going for a holiday. I’m going to bring my mum to live with us here in the Philippines.

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My Nan got Alzheimer’s.

At first, it was just little things. Misplacing objects. Forgetting names. But we all knew where it was heading.

It’s a devastating illness to witness.

And quietly, it terrified my mum.

She never said it out loud, but I could see it — in the way she looked at her own mum, in the way she tracked the decline. Watching your own mother disappear like that, knowing it could be you next… is very scary and sobering.

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Then my dad got motor neurone disease.

He was healthy. Walking. Driving. Laughing. And then he wasn’t.

From diagnosis to death in under two years.

That changed something in me — and I know it affected my mum deeply too.

Mortality had entered her generation.

It wasn’t theoretical anymore.

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She lives alone back in the UK.

We’ve always stayed close, but for the past decade, I’ve lived in the Philippines with my wife and two daughters. And during a quiet conversation about a year ago, I saw something in her eyes. Fear. Uncertainty. Loneliness, maybe.

I told her — without hesitation —

“If you ever need care, I’ll fly back. You’ll never be in a home.”

She smiled, but it stuck with me.

Why should we wait for illness to start living closer together?

Why not now, while we still have time?

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So I made a decision.

She mentioned she wasn’t happy in her current home. She was thinking of moving within the UK. I said:

“Come here. Move in next to us.”

We own two small houses on our land here. I used my savings to fully renovate the second one just for her. I wanted it to feel like a real home — not just a room to grow old in. My savings are gone, but the memories we can now make will last forever.

This week, I’m flying back to the UK to bring her here.

She’ll live just a few feet away from us.

She’ll get to see her only two grandchildren whenever she wants.

She’ll have a garden, sunshine, companionship, and the time with us she would’ve otherwise missed.

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This wasn’t a sacrifice. It was a choice.

To rewrite the story before it became another goodbye.

To honor the time we still have, rather than mourn it when it’s gone.

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I don’t know what the years ahead will bring.

But I do know this:

My mum will never grow old alone.

And I’ll never have to wonder if I should’ve done more.

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And of course, I’ll be documenting this new chapter — not for the blog, not for Instagram — but for me. For her. For the girls. So that someday, when this story becomes memory, it won’t disappear.