Fortunately, many others have paved the way through the challenge of caring for elderly parents from a distance. I learned yesterday that the local electric company has something called a “third party notification,” so they will contact someone else (i.e., adult children of a senior citizen) before utilities are disconnected. That, in itself, is a huge relief.
In this case, it appears that she did pay the electric bill, but as of yesterday, they hadn’t recorded it. Maybe the mail is slow. I should probably help her set it up for auto-payment, along with the phone bill.
Tomorrow’s challenge will be to contact some of the folks who send her paper checks (the fruit co-op of which she’s a member, and a couple of brokerages from whom she receives dividend checks) and see if we can’t get those set up for direct deposit. That way, she doesn’t have to worry about how to get them to the bank.
I would be happy to have her live with us, and have extended that offer on a number of occasions. However, this is the farm she was born on, that’s been in her family for over a hundred years. The pictures on the walls are of ancestors who immigrated around the turn of the last century (or a little earlier); there is her grandparents’ framed marriage license (in German, of course).
I don’t blame her for not wanting to leave. This is her home.
Finding a way to make this work is our problem.
You are remarkably resourseful. I’m sure if it is humanly possible, you will make it work.
I do love your dedication to your MIL, but actually no, “Finding a way to make this work…” isn’t just your problem.
While I love my parents and my MIL, they are responsible for themselves. It has been their responsibility to prepare for their retirement and plan for their long term care. As long as they are of sound mind, and they insist on making all of their own decisions, it is their job to make things work. I am willing to do anything that I can possibly do to make sure they are taken care of, but they really aren’t my responsibility.
I can empathize with you and your MIL that she doesn’t want to move from her family home. That certainly is her choice. Unfortunately if she makes that choice, she will have to accept the consequences for “her” decision. If you assume the responsibility for your MIL and she continues to make decisions that make your “responsibility” more difficult then you are both wrong. Sorry.
If the best thing for your MIL is for her to stay in her home then, by all means, she should stay there. If she is unable to take care of herself and her business, then she needs to understand how crazy it is for you folks to jump in the car and drive that kind of a distance to take care of things and a regular basis.
In the case of the pinkpainter’s mom, since she has been unable to take care of herself, she has had to relinquish some control of her life to her daughter. It is a sad thing to watch, but at this point in her life it is necessary. She only lived 50 minutes away from us, but if she were to have stayed in her home on the lake then pinkpainter would have had to drive out there everyday to take care of the ole gal. Not practical. Granted her family hadn’t owned the property for a hundred years, but it was simply not feasible for her to stay in a home that was nearly an hour from a doc or a hospital.
You and HWTFM are certainly in a spot. Tough decisions are going to have to be made, and like I said in your other thread, not everyone will be happy with the result.
Very good intellectualization of the problem, daco.
” . . . she will have to accept the consequences for “her†decision.”
What makes this prescription problematic is the possibility that one of the consequences may end up being both tragic and preventable. The burden of guilt that some folks would feel under such circumstances (present company excepted, perhaps) is enough to motivate them to do things that logic doesn’t require.
Great job. You do all you can do to make her as secure as you can. I understand her not wanting to leave her home and agree that she should stay there as long as she possibly can.
DACO:
Although everything you said is so logical it is so MALE. Black or white, right or wrong. There is no black or white here. The whole situation is gray and you have to let the MIL or Mother still keep her independance and dignity as long as she can. The way you handled the situation was great and it worked for you. You were lucky that your MIL did not fight you as my mother did. I was going to have to take my mother to court and prove her incompetant. I just wasn’t ready for that. Each adult parent deals with it different and you have to go with the way they go.You have been very fortunate with the maturity your MIL handled it mine looked at it as stealing her life from her and fought us tooth and nail.
Girlfriend, I am sorry you had such a difficult time with your mom. You obviously know first hand how tough this stuff can be.
I honestly don’t mean to set myself up as an expert. I’m not. Believe me the pinkpainter has done most of the real work and yes we have been lucky.
That being said, I think that it is important to keep things as real as possible.
Of course, we all want to make very sure that our parent or loved one maintains their dignity. Surely without that, my own life wouldn’t be worth very much and I do want my MIL and my own parents to maintain their personal dignity and their self-worth. At the point that my loved one honestly needs me to take care of them, their independence is an illusion and I think that it is healthier for all concerned to be honest about that. That still doesn’t change what is and isn’t my responsibility.
If my mom, dad or mil wants me to help out by taking care of them, then they really do have to understand that since I have a dog in the fight that my life and my circumstances must be considered in the equation. That doesn’t mean that what I want is the most important thing to be measured, but I’m sorry…I can’t help if I’m not regarded as important too. This is where families really become families.
We obviously owe our parents a great debt, but we don’t owe them our lives. Our needs and situation must be considered to be important. If my loved one doesn’t take into
Belay my last partial sentence.
NM, wish I had words to offer. A decision like this is probably one of the harder things in life.
Word.
A freakin PhD says “word?” Give me a break.
The time could come that we have to insist on a change for her own safety, but that time has not come just yet.
She needs some help, but I think that we can make some minor adjustments that will make her life a little easier for the time being. She’s been through a very stressful time, and that’s the crux of her problem at this point — not senility or incompetence.
There’s more detail that I won’t go into here, but I do appreciate the moral support from all of you.