Oh my..

Mom is 92, will be 93 in May.

She lives in independent living near my sister.

A recent health issue (Mom fell and broke her hip) has me managing it long distance.

I have spent some time with Mom..and then get reports from my sister who lives very close..

Oh my...I have always been the calm, source of reason..my sister? NOT! DRAMA! She will sue!!

I left Mom yesterday after I helped her out of bed, got her looking good, feeling good.

Today, sister is calling with crisis she feels happened three days ago.Demanding xrays, meds etc....(I was there all those days )...

I have come to the point where I will not stay with my sis (the shock jock am radio in her car is enough to make me flee)..

I camp out in my Mom's apartment close to her rehab..rather than take on the rants...

It is hard to tease out what is really going on..

My sister did mention to me on more than one occasion.."Why does Mom cry all the time with me but not with you?"

I am the farthest away...

It sucks getting old ...for my Mom and me!

Sigh....

Oh, boy, does that description bring back memories...

Taking care of aging parents can be challenging in a lot of different ways. I'm an only child so I've never had to deal with sibling issues.

Mr wtg, OTOH, is the eldest of seven. When his parents got older and needed assistance, I got to see the family interactions up close and personal. A lot of old emotions and grudges bubbled up amongst them. Sometimes I was like Where did that come from? It was mind-boggling at times.

There was the drama queen, the ostrich with her head in the sand, the brother who promised to help but never delivered, the brother who loved Mom but checked out completely when it came to Dad, and the youngest brother who totally stepped up to the plate.

We couldn't control what the others were doing or feeling. Nor could we go back and fix the old sibling rivalries and unfinished business various family members had with their parents. We tried to block out the family noise and focus on Mr wtg's parents and do what we thought needed to be done to ease their final years.

His mom died in 2005 and his Dad in 2010. Looking back, I think it worked out OK. We did the best we could; that's all anyone can ask.

It'll be OK.

Yup. This situation can bring out the worst in people. Sorry you are going through it!

"Crisis" was more then 4 hours ago..I have texted for updates...

Crickets..sigh..

Last crisis was "Mom in ER!"..except that was sent after Mom was in ER for 6 hours!!

I am going down as much as I can, especially on weekends as the staff is light on weekends...And sis is busy with her bar/restaurant biz.

So tonight's crisis..

OMG "Mom in pain, they broke something on Friday! Mom needs an xray..they are bringing a portable xray"...

I ask .."Are you there?"

"Oh no...They will bring it eventually and let me know"...

quote:

Originally posted by BeeLady:
So tonight's crisis..

OMG "Mom in pain, they broke something on Friday! Mom needs an xray..they are bringing a portable xray"...

I ask .."Are you there?"

"Oh no...They will bring it eventually and let me know"...

I’m so sorry. Long distance management of care is already difficult; your sister isn’t making it easier.

I feel your pain. We just had to move my beloved MIL to memory care. We met this morning with the attorneys managing her spend down of assets and application for Medicaid as she will be out of funds in a couple months.

Luckily both families involved are on the same page and working together, unlike MFR's brother who 'borrowed' $160K from her and never paid it back. But he's not really involved anyway.

During my fathers two year journey from home care to assisted living to nursing home, two of my four siblings bore the brunt of visiting and care because they lived very close to him. I, three hours away, visited weekly and when summoned by him to discuss end of life options. Two other sisters were significantly farther away and did not visit often. When he passed, I suggested and we all agreed that the two who were at his side almost every day should get first pick of all the stuff in his house, much of which had been in the family for generations. Throughout it all, the five of us remained on good terms.

Jf

quote:

Originally posted by Mikhailoh:
unlike MFR's brother who 'borrowed' $160K from her and never paid it back

When my grandmother (my mother's mother) was committed to a nursing home, her son handled everything.

When she died, there was nothing left in the estate, including various pieces of jewelry that were no longer there.

Where did it all go? Where did the proceeds from the sale of her condo go, when she went into the nursing home? I just know that my mother told me that she and her sister didn't see any of it.

We could go after him. It was all documented. We believe he stole one copy of the documentation but is unaware that we have another copy. We are also pretty sure that in his divorce, which involved many debts, he used this to say "I'll take this debt if you take the other".

Unfortunately MFR and her sister are unwilling to pull that trigger. I'd do it in a New York Minute. Even if he'd have paid her back $100 a month, some small token of good faith. He is the reason their mother is going on Medicaid. Had he paid her back she would have had enough to last probably three more years.

quote:

Originally posted by Jack Frost:
During my fathers two year journey from home care to assisted living to nursing home, two of my four siblings bore the brunt of visiting and care because they lived very close to him. I, three hours away, visited weekly and when summoned by him to discuss end of life options. Two other sisters were significantly farther away and did not visit often. When he passed, I suggested and we all agreed that the two who were at his side almost every day should get first pick of all the stuff in his house, much of which had been in the family for generations. Throughout it all, the five of us remained on good terms.

Jf

I was my father's executor and that was my major goal - preserved relationships. He had made conflicting promises, all undocumented, to various folks and negotiating that was no mean feat. But that was the most precious thing to keep.

As an attorney I saw the worst of it. Grandma dies and someone is in her house within hours looking for the jewelry. My firm was and without me still is the go to firm for estate litigation in Maine.

My own family had none of that. The five of us look out for ea ch other. I credit my mom for raising us that way.

Jf

I have a couple of different close friends who permanently lost their siblings to estate squabbles. Including my house guest of this weekend actually.

When I was executor of my parent’s estate, (who left everything more or less split between me and my sister-in-law), My tactic was to take SIL along with me every time I went to visit the attorneys or one of the brokers. I’m pretty sure she trusted me anyway, but this way she didn’t have to. She could ask questions directly of the attorney, and hear directly how those instructions were relayed to the financial institutions distributing the funds.

I think it worked. We’re still friends…

I always advised clients to leave everything to their kids in equal shares and not try to adjust inheritances because one kid married well or was a doctor when the other was a teacher. Only exception being when one kid had special health needs, and then do it in trust with a clear purpose.

Jf

I've already spoken more than once about how my sons and I were vastly cheated out of what we were to have received of a once very large family estate.

Why and how? Because of psychopathological family dynamics (and greed, of course). The how is that my mother turned all money management over to her favorite son, immediately after my father's death. (She didn't even attend the reading of the will.) My brother disposed of my father's body in the crematorium as if it were his personal property (I'd have liked to have that closure too only from the POV of affection, unlike him). I understood later it was important for him to be sure Dad was really dead.

At the time of my last visit home, months before he died (and the same few months before I gave birth to my second son which prevented my seeing him alive again), I was both horrified and mystified by Dad's comment about that brother. He told me to be careful of him, followed by describing him (after long minutes of struggle to find words) as... "evil ". I tried to defend my brother against such an awful accusation. Later, though, I understood all too well where Dad was coming from and landed on that same term from experience. Unfortunately, despite that too-late warning, I was unable to protect my sons and me from the power he acquired after our father was gone.

There was great enmity between them, it turned out and somehow I was swept along with it (it was really strange, as that brother changed towards me overnight - we had gotten on well before then).

I discovered a strange file cabinet in Dad's studio full of nothing but tense, elaborately worded correspondence between them covering the last few years of his life (mostly from brother to him). Intellectualized rage he felt safe expressing now that Dad was mortally ill.

Before I was able to study it, though (Yes, I felt entitled to be party to those mysteries!) that brother materialized at the studio door with a fearful but gloating expression. He was clearly anxious to prevent my learning any of his terrible secrets otherwise encrypted by our father's death. I recalled Dad's confessing in a call from his hospital bed, he'd finally had to tell the brother to leave home rather than "help" - his purported goal shortly before his father's death. And that shocking characterization of his son as EVIL, came back to me.

I only learned of a fraction of the financial improprieties because I was accidentally sent copies of monthly trust statements (there were almost ten trusts under management!).

Once I inquired (innocently) of the holding Trust company about a particular egregious transaction. That revealed my mistaken inclusion and I ceased to be in the loop.

Sometimes I thought of demanding he give a full accounting of everything he had done as Trustee and executor, knowing full well it would take him the rest of his life to unravel everything - not even counting consequences of exposing his improper dealings. Not just towards us, but the IRS! (Al Capone's downfall?). All the more since he had taken over all investing after he fired two Trust companies - with reason. Oh, what a tangled web he wove! It just didn't seem like a good idea, though, as the rest of the nuclear family was already scapegoating me in a way that damaged my sons.

Feeling my stomach turning again, as I reflect on how different our lives are now because of that brother's wrong-doing, if possible even more from his psychological manipulations than the financial ones. Ironically, he passed away suddenly a year ago and since he then lived in Tokyo with his Japanese wife, no one in the US had anything to do with his funeral (We got only an emailed photograph of the ceremony - a framed photo of him in his prime, propped up by an urn surrounded by flowers).

What else was lost are ALL the financial records he managed and was managing, wholly inaccessible in his Tokyo computer. No one has passwords. My surviving brother and S-I-L are desperate about it, as well they might be since I know they stand to gain a good deal according to that brother's arrangements.