They have never sufficiently separated from my mom. Until her fall, she was still cooking my 68yo brother lunch every day. You would think once she started setting off fire alarms doing so he’d insist she stop, but no. And my sister was calling up to five times a day, often sharing her tales of woe. Personally, I think it’s cruel to dump all your emotional crap on your 90yo mother, but she does it anyway. Part of the reason I moved 3+ hours away in my 20s is because of their, IMO, screwed-up dynamics. I can’t see them letting her go for any amount of time, but I’m on my way back up there in a couple of hours and if the time presents itself, I will make my offer. If not, I will wait until dh and I are up there for a week next month.
In good news, my SIL texted and said mom is doing great today so maybe we have dodged a bullet here and life can resume mostly as before.
Families are complicated. Not just a phrase, it’s a fact! Nearly all of us have family quirks and hurdles to ponder and deal with it. Times like a sick family member can make these family complications even more complicated!
The hospice social worker told me that when someone is dying, all the family’s skeletons in their closer come out and dance.
Caring for my parents ripped my brother and I apart. Not only are we not speaking, but I had to sue him. The court granted my petition “in its entirety” because my brother was so egregious.
I think I win the “bad family dynamics while someone is dying” prize for today
@kiddie — I didn’t mean to pick on anyone, just wanted people to understand that Medicare only rarely helps subsidize care. Medicaid on the other hand does.
Adding to my post about Medicaid requiring spend down to the point of $2k or less. I am reading a hefty book on estate planning and it is more complicated than that, especially if you are married, since your spouse has an allowance, and can live in the house etc. I won’t go into detail but don’t want to leave an oversimpification in my post as is.
At one point, my unpartnered, non-homeowning sister was exploring the idea of moving home to help care for my parents when they need it, and they would leave her the house. (They have long-term care insurance, so we’re talking about my sister housekeeping and supervising care assistants, not doing all the actual bathing, etc.). The three other siblings thought that would be fair, because we don’t need a house, and she should be recognized for taking one for the team. My parents, though, are very uncomfortable with any inheritance plan that isn’t a perfect 4-way split, so we’ll have to see what other ideas we can come up with. My mother is dead set against any plan that involves her leaving her house.
The parents can put the home in all 4 sibling names if they own it free and clear. After parents pass, the other 3 can relinquish any claim on the home and have the title be in the one sister’s name if the sister does end up carrying out on caring for the parents an extended time in their home.
DH’s parents left their home in their sons’ names years before dad went into skilled care. Since mom was in he home, she was able to stay in the home w/o the home being given up as dad’s care went into Medicaid. Mom only was in skilled care for less than 2 weeks when she died. She didn’t quite ‘die in her home’ like my mother did, but close. One son wants to cash out - a niece does want to eventually own the home, so she may ‘buy in’ on the brother’s share. The other 3 are fine with the arrangement of ‘the family property’.
DH and I do need to read up on estate handling, but is ‘back burner’ for now.
Personally, we want to be in our own place as long as we can - and down the road we can work out how our lives can/will go with our DDs and grandchildren (who hopefully will be grown by the time we need help). Our one son in law’s parents are about our age but not in as good of health - the dad has Parkinson’s, and the mom is stressed out with managing everything while the home which has had no significant upkeep or care since the dad just never paid any attention to it (they moved into that home in 2005, and it was in prime condition at that point). The dad had mandatory retirement at 55 (government, but with policing), so they did not build up as much of a nest egg. So they do hire out what absolutely needs to be done. With sons/wives visiting over Christmas/New Year’s, got some help clearing out old records/paperwork.
No offense meant at all, but this is exactly the difficulty. Parents have this idea that everything will proceed along calmly and on a schedule of their own making — but it’s the stroke, the heart attack, the falls, the pneumonia that precipitates a decision, instead. We have been pleading with my ILs for a year about getting out of their huge isolated multilevel home, but they are in good health and see no reason to work on that now. There will be a crisis, with their children left sorting it all out.
Staying in our homes until we can’t is a disservice in many cases. My elderly parents, besieged by setbacks but wealthy, said they wished they had moved while they could.
I can’t stress enough what a good choice my in laws made to go into assisted living when they did. They wanted to stay in their home forever, but even with help, it became too dangerous for my FIL. It would have been way too much for my SIL to have to keep running over when they called. It was a 3 hour drive, and they called her over for “emergencies” like changing sheets on beds when friends decided to drop by at the last minute. She never would have lasted had they stayed in their place.
But where it really was important was after my FIL passed away. MIL kept saying that she wished she hadn’t sold the house, because she could have moved back. She was sure she could stay there alone. She absolutely could not have done that, but because there was no house to return to, we didn’t have to argue with her about it.
Being in our own place does not mean we don’t downsize, move closer to family, have help come in. I have worked skilled care and rehab as a BSN nurse as my ‘sunset career’ - I get it. DH gets it, and we are 66. To the extent we were able to help across the miles with my mother (dementia, died at 77; dad had died of cancer at age 64), she did well at home with live in help and two siblings close, and when evaluated for hospice on a Monday - was admitted and the hospitalization was what they thought was infected gall bladder (gave her IV antibiotics) - she went home with hospice care on Thursday and died on the following Monday. FIL went to skilled care pretty willingly when it was too difficult for his care at home (years later he died at age 92 of Covid/Complications with ‘comfort care’ the Hospitalist ‘sold’ him w/o family present). MIL lived at home beyond what she should have, but she had no options at the very end to go to skilled care (my DH was not going to move in and be her 24/7 attendant - that was the option she wanted) - and she had a re-bout of her medications not pulling her through Hypertensive Heart Disease and other medical issues the second week she was at skilled care - and she died at 92.
My healthy and very active 69 YO sister is caring for her 85 YO husband with declining health (they married when she was 25 and he was 41). That could go on another 10 years. If needed, she will get help come in - he is of sound mind, just aging body. They purchased their home which the right size for them. During some time between completing college, sister worked at the county nursing home, so she understands elderly declining health and their needs. Their personal investments have been so conservative, but she does have a partial pension and he has a pension. She doesn’t want to use up resources with skilled care unless it is just impossible to keep her husband home.
DH and I have excellent care - a caring PCP and use a network of specialists. In the 1990’s, I was administrator and CFO of a specialty physician group in this area, so understand and use the health care in the area as we need it. DD1 is BSN and now has 7 years in hospital unit work and nurse management work. DH’s brother is a pharmacist. We do figure out and have level heads on these matters.
I’ve heard so many say they wish they would have made the move sooner. I also have a dear (healthy) friend who was convinced by others that she should downsize, and move to a senior community, so she did. She regretted it for many many years. Her health is starting to decline now, and she’ll likely need to move again. It’s just so hard to know “when” is best.
