Divorce, maybe?
I’ll never know the story and would never ask them for the details, but I hadn’t considered medical bills. Our daughter went to the emergency room 2 months ago, spent 1 night in the hospital, and the total of all the bills, if, indeed, I’ve received them all, will come close to 6K, after insurance. They never even gave her an Advil for pain, and we just received a $300+ bill from the ER doc who never even physically touched her and couldn’t have possibly spent more than 20-30 minutes in the room with us, total. He’s already received 80% of his charge, and now wants the other 20% from us — and he earns a salary!!!
Whew. Got that off my chest. Just really meant to say that I can easily understand how massive medical bills would completely devastate a family, especially an older couple living mostly on retirement income.