Sorry @esobay it is not easy. I am learning there are no easy answers. I have had a bad week with my dad. I took him to his office last weekend to finish cleaning out his desk (he and his ex-wife own the business together). We got a coffee at the coffee shop two doors down and the owner said hi to him. This made him miss all of his friends from his neighborhood. He has it in his head that he can move to the coffee shop. Monday when I visited he was sad, and today he was angry. I think he is also starting to think about escaping. Not fun.
Eso, I understand. I recently made the tough decision that I cannot bring my very mobile parents with dementia to my nephew’s wedding (on the other coast). My mom doesn’t want to go and my dad does, but he thinks it is just a matter of putting him on a plane. There will be no way I can keep track of them for the 3 days or so during the trip. Plus, dad doesn’t realize how terribly confused he will be once away from their predictable retirement community. SIL won’t forgive me, but I can’t do much with that. As to Christmas, I have told DH that I won’t spend Christmas away from them as long as they realize it is Christmas. But, they are local. 7 hours is a different story!
Would flying be an option for you or your brother to “drop in” sometime during the holidays? For me, any trip longer than 5 hours is a plane trip and rental car. But, I don’t “love” driving.
@esobay, it’s just hard, hard, hard. Sometimes there just aren’t solutions. Virtual hugs from me and I am sure from the rest of us in this thread.
Our elderly parents don’t realize that (in some cases) they must be babysat like a young child.
Yes, I know it chafes my dad he can’t just decide at the spur of the moment he will fly to another city or country because we explained mom is scared to fly unless one of us comes along and none of us can drop everything to accompany them. It is tiring to accompany confused folks who lose important things like IDs, wallets, etc. and get lost.
Thanks again, all. It helps to see others in the trenches, although I wish fewer of us had such a visceral understanding…
Tx5, it comes and goes. I hope your Dad releases the anger but it sometimes gives them strength. And can anyone set up skyp or facetime stream of the wedding for them?
No airplane service for a couple of years in Mom’s small town. Now there is service, but I’d have to fly to Portland and then fly down. I can fly to a town 70 miles away, but after all the airport hassles, it is about as fast to drive and I (and bro on his end) can control the schedule. And I actually don’t mind driving long distance.
Tension never seems to end, I missed a call from the AL place in the AM. They usually only call with bad news, and we were packing to go camping. When I called back no one was there to answer the phone!!! But then they called again (half an hour of stressing on my part) and Mom had bruises they noticed in the shower. They have to call. She bruises easily, less so after stopping some meds, but still easy.
I’m tired of the “we found a bruise” phone call. My mother has bruised easily her whole life, as did her mother and do I. I realize they’re following protocol, but I wish communication about other issues were so conscientious.
We go a lot of your Dad/ Mother has slipped out of bed. At least they waited until morning to call. It seems that they had to notify us.
I got the point where when I saw the blinking light on the answering machine, I didn’t want to play back the message. My dad figured out the shortest distance from his room to the dinning room was through the fire door. Ring.
My dad would lose his room key and ask for a replacement. Then he wouldn’t let anyone help him search in his apartment. He had lost over 10 keys. Ring.
My dad was kind of battling with the woman across the hall from him. She’d ride too close to him in her motorized wheelchair. He bump her wheelchair as she passed with his cane. (or something like that) Ring.
And that was the early stuff.
I have just finished this book - it is excellent.
Great book, Dragonmom. There’s a companion PBS Frontline program:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/being-mortal/
The pbs link is very though-provoking. From the reviews of the book (which I haven’t read) and the show, it seems like many good questions are raised but I’m not sure when and whether there are satisfying answers.
One of the questions the author suggests asking the person who is making end-of-life (or potentially end-of-life) health-care decisions is the following: “What makes your life worth living?” And he says that the answers to this question might help the person and his or her family decide if a certain course of treatment should be pursued. For example, if the person says “eating ice cream and watching TV make my life worth living” and the person likely will still be able to do those things and enjoy them after the treatment, that weighs heavily in favor of the person getting the treatment.
" Our elderly parents don’t realize that (in some cases) they must be babysat like a young child. "
I didn’t even REMEMBER that I posted here with an update on our situation, but THANKS!!! to esobay and others with responses. He is essentially our dependent and he is giving us money for his share of room and board and our caregiving - liked we’d be caregivers for our own kids. Since he’s actually at our home, I don’t feel like it is like stopping by his house and being a caregiver for a few hours per day - he’s taken care of any hour we are home, so all but 24 hours that I and the kids aren’t home each week (thank goodness he can be alone for that time).
He is still living with me, my spouse, and my children, and estimate is that he will be here at least until February. My goal is now to get his finances in order because there is a company that he and my youngest brother runs that they’ve been using to pay their expenses. My brother was supposed to be 50-50 with my dad in the company, but on a yearly basis it is like 80% paying my brother’s costs and 20% paying my dad’s costs. All my brother’s vacations are paid for by the company, so that is most of the difference.
So on to a lawyer, hopefully next week, to talk about what to do about it. I want nothing more than my dad to be out of the company, because I do believe my brother has been screwing him. I don’t feel the need to “get the money back” but I do feel the need to stop it NOW. There is no reason to keep my dad in since he will give the company to my brother in his will anyway. He has fear that his SS and pensions and IRA won’t be enough to make ends meet, but that’s ONLY because he blew his home equity on the company. If we can get back the loans on his house in the company name, he will be fine - or he will have to sell his house and move in with us permanently, which is fine.
I think someone mentioned that book a while ago and because of that suggestion, I read it this past winter. It was really thought provoking.
I took my dad to vote. I know he voted for the person I don’t want to win.
But I guess that is what love is, helping someone do something you don’t think they should do…
Anyone have any advice on how to deal with an elderly parent’s financial issues? It’s getting tougher and tougher, because now that he knows more of what is going on, he wants to make moves but I know it will alienate my siblings.
I feel for you rhandco. It is so tough just to do anything, and then to worry about siblings on top of it, yikes!
If you think he is “sensible” enough, then it is his to do with what he wants. Just document document document, have lawyers advice, have him talk to tax people., etc etc.
then if siblings don’t like it… you have legs to stand on. Even if the choices are perhaps not ones you would make to keep “happy family”.
I am on good terms with my bro and we pretty much are in agreement on most every decision. BUT from my mom’s experience with her Mom and the resulting sibling and other grandkid disappointment leading to them starting to sue the estate, I recommend more professional advice and more documentation. Record your Dad describing what and why he did xxx. Grandma thought she’d given her surviving sons their inheritance early (one was paid for one of the very first open heart surgery at Standford) so she left much of her property to just the two girls, both of whom stuck with her and did more of her care. Mom got all the furniture in the house which is what some grandkids didn’t think was fair, but Mom was there changing Grandma’s diapers for two years (Mom was there 10, but Grandma only needed diapers the last 2 years). I say she earned the furniture. Because GRANDMA did NOT change her will after Mom moved in , but she did go to the lawyer (without Mom) and write and record a “bill of sale” for the furniture then my relatives were shut down early in the starting to sue Mom process. And she didn’t care about one of her brothers. She reconciled with the other later in life. So even if your siblings are mad short term, if you have things to show that it was your Dad’s decision and HIS money, then I’d back your dad whatever.
Thing is, isn’t your father losing his sharpness, RH? So depending on what he “wants,” it may or may not be the best course. I agree about getting legal advice (both to ensure he has the right funds available for the rest of his life,- including any unexpected medical or a skilled nursing home- and to anticipate the sorts of fights other family may later put up.) But at some point, you may need to make a distinctly informed decision and simply proceed. Do you have this authority? You may be able to explain it to family as, “The lawyer recommended, this as what’s best for Dad, and Dad agreed to it.”
If he will move in Feb, seems you have a fixed time to get things set up. Would he be able to live without the 20% from the company? And is the company strong enough to pay back those loans he made? (Backing out of the company may take time.) If he does run out of money, will the other sibs help with financial support? Or would he, eg, live with another sib, but you’d be supporting him?
Hope you have a list for the attorney of all the line items and considerations.
@esobay, the sad part of that story is that the furniture which caused high emotions probably would not sell for much, based on the estate sale stuff I have seen!