Every word of your mother about her home is exactly what I would say about my home. I'm the mom of 3 grownup children who doesn't want to give up on our home. Not only because none of my children has been settled (meaning getting married, starting their own families in their own homes), but mostly because of all those reasons your mother was talking about.. I also "did my homework" when the time seemed to be right, and then, once in a while I began having nightmares about moving into another house, always discovering how terrible it turned out to be, and what an awful mistake I had made by exchanging our family home for a random meaningless house. No longer I consider downsizing, but I still have this kind of nightmares from time to time, always waking up with a huge sense of relief realizing it was just a bad dream....

Thanks for sharing your story. It certainly resonates...