It was 10:30 at night and I had missed dinner—again. As I knelt on the floor and gingerly slipped the fuzzy slipper onto my client’s lymphedema-swollen foot, I reflected on a conversation with a forward loan officer earlier in the day: “What is it you like so much about your job?” he had asked. My answer: “Overcoming otherwise insuperable obstacles in seniors’ lives.”

Not all my clients are fighting cancer—obviously. However, this client, with her many needs and many factors to consider, vividly represents the multifaceted face of reverse mortgage origination.

When I first started in the business, home values were deteriorating by the day and “turn-downs” far outnumbered closings. Most of my workweek was composed of networking, cold calling, writing—and teaching, teaching, teaching. And it paid off: Those relationships forged years ago still produce leads, and those primary contacts pass my name on to others.

But little did I know—little could I have guessed—just where my life as a reverse mortgage loan officer would lead me. I have been in $3,000,000 homes and $30,000 homes; dirty homes and spotless homes; homes of the active and homes of the paralyzed; homes old and new, rural and urban; homes so decrepit we had to do a total rebuild before moving forward. But they’re all someone’s home.

Many of my clients, indeed most of my clients, are well-read, well-educated, well-traveled; they are using their reverse mortgage to plan for the future. But the names I will long remember are those of the oldest, the poorest, the sickest.

And here’s what all my borrowers have in common: They want to remain at home with as much dignity and independence as circumstances allow. Indeed, I have yet to meet the man who says, “My goal in life is to get old and sick and die in a nursing home.” Home, just being home—it’s the longing of the human heart.

If statistics are correct, some reading this article have children who will live to see the year 2130. This means there will be some big changes to the very fabric of how we live, where we live, and with whom we live.

But though there are changes all around us—to our product, to our families, to our nation—there is one thing we can be pretty sure is not going to change, and that’s the deep desire to be at home.

And, for the record, making that possible is what I love so much about my job.