After my son convinced me to live in a nursing home, I wrote letters to him daily telling him I missed him. He never replied to any of them until one day, a stranger shared why and came to take me home.

When I turned 81, I was diagnosed with Osteoporosis, which made it difficult for me to move around without assistance. My condition also made it difficult for my son Tyler and his wife Macy to take care of me, so they decided to move me to a nursing home.

“We can’t be tending to you the entire day, mom,” Tyler told me. “We have work to do. We’re not caregivers.”

I wondered why he suddenly felt that way towards me, as I always tried to stay out of their way so I wouldn’t disrupt their daily schedules. I would stay in my room and use my walker to assist me whenever I needed to walk to another area of the house.

“I’ll stay out of your way, I promise. Just don’t send me to a nursing home, please. Your father built this house for me, and I’d love to keep living here for the rest of my life,” I begged.

Tyler shrugged me off, saying that the house my late husband James had built was “too big for me.”

“Come on, mom,” he said. “Leave the house to Macy and me! Look at all this space – we can have a gym and separate offices. There’s plenty of room to renovate.”

At this point, I understood that his decision to move me to a nursing home was not because he wanted me to get proper care but to get my house for himself. I was deeply hurt, trying to stop myself from crying upon realizing that somehow, Tyler had grown up to be a selfish man.

“Where did I go wrong?” I asked myself when I got into my room that night. I thought I had raised a well-mannered man, but it seems I was wrong. I never expected to be betrayed by my son.

Without giving me much of a choice, Tyler and Macy took me to a nursing home nearby, where they said I’d get round-the-clock care from the nurses. “Don’t worry, mom, we’ll visit as much as we can,” Tyler assured me.

Hearing this, I realized that maybe moving to a nursing home wasn’t too bad because they’d come to see me anyway. Little did I know, Tyler was lying and simply trying to get me off his back.

Every day at the nursing home seemed like an eternity. Although the nurses were friendly and the other patients were nice to talk to, I still longed to be with family and not in a place full of strangers.

Without a phone or tablet, I wrote letters to Tyler every day asking him to visit me or how they were doing. Not once did I get a response nor a visit.

After two years in the nursing home, I lost any hope of anyone coming. “Please, take me home,” I would pray every night, but after two years, I tried to convince myself not to get my hopes up anymore.

One day, however, I was surprised to find out from my nurse that a man in his forties was at the counter, looking for me. “Did my son finally come to visit?” I said, getting my walker quickly before making my way to the front.