Thirty-five years ago, Holly Bowers Ruben moved from California to New York, following an actor boyfriend to Brooklyn. The relationship didn’t last, but Ms. Ruben never moved back, although her mother, Marie-Louise Bowers, stayed out west.
That arrangement worked — mostly. “I did talk to my mom on a daily basis. That’s kind of the relationship we had, even when she was in California,” Ms. Ruben said.
But last year Ms. Bowers, 87, started having trouble getting around, and Ms. Ruben felt that helping her mother from across the country was at best a difficult prospect. In January, Ms. Ruben moved her mother to Sunrise at Mill Basin, in Brooklyn.