I'm feeling particularly overwhelmed today. I'm in an elder-care netherworld . I'm caught in conflicting emotions, a myriad of choices and as usual a bit of family drama.
On March 3 of this year my Grandmother turned 83 years old. Five years ago we lost my Grandfather and he made me promise to take care of her because as he said she had always been taken care of and wouldn't be OK on her own. We all promised him to take care of her but he singled me out the night before he died and asked me again. So I feel like I have a special duty to do this.
Fast forward to now and after her third serious fall and second serious break she is at the point where her home and being by herself just isn't feasible or safe anymore. She picked me to be her power of attorney and to handle her financial business. I have tried to keep everyone in the loop on my decisions and she still says what we do or don't do but there are a lot of things she says that she doesn't understand and deferred to my judgement
So now after months of going back and forth on whether or not she'll be able to be home like she wanted we now know that "going home" isn't an option. Now we have a semi empty house to deal with.. My youngest cousin used it as a flophouse while my grandma was there and with her blessing he continues to use it even though he breaks her rules of not smoking in it and having strangers inside it. I look at it that while family heirlooms can walk out the door it does provide foot traffic in the now crime ridden neighborhood that the house sits in. I used to get more angry and worked up about it, but since my grandma won't tell him he can't stay there is not much I can really do so I had to just let it go.
However there is the matter of the stuff inside it. Grandma had a plan for me to distribute out the items she had marked to go to certain family members to them and then sell the rest of the items that have no value as family items. This should have been easy however , it hasn't been. There are three of us designated to get stuff . Me , my dad and my aunt. Split the big stuff in thirds. Not so hard except that my aunt is to get the house upon my grandma's death. That is until the financial situation hit me. With $5,000 a month in care costs I am burning through the tiny bit of savings she had like wildfire.
I mentioned this to my family that we couldn't continue this way she couldn't afford to support two households and that we would have to seriously look at either someone else taking over the house insurance and utilities or it might be best to speed up getting the family stuff out and speed up possibly selling or renting the house for extra income. They all agreed and did nothing. Whether this was due to denial of the true situation or something else it fell to me to get things started.
I visited my grandmother's elder law attorney and we started forming a plan to protect her assets in the event we had to apply for Medicaid (which is a definite thing now). The attorney says to protect things that the house needs to be sold because once we apply for Medicaid it will be gone to the state. This is true as I was a supervisor at the office for years. The only chance to protect anything for her to have hairdos and such is to sell it and put the proceeds in a trust . It's also the only chance for me to be able to give anything besides household items to my aunt.
On March 3 of this year my Grandmother turned 83 years old. Five years ago we lost my Grandfather and he made me promise to take care of her because as he said she had always been taken care of and wouldn't be OK on her own. We all promised him to take care of her but he singled me out the night before he died and asked me again. So I feel like I have a special duty to do this.
Fast forward to now and after her third serious fall and second serious break she is at the point where her home and being by herself just isn't feasible or safe anymore. She picked me to be her power of attorney and to handle her financial business. I have tried to keep everyone in the loop on my decisions and she still says what we do or don't do but there are a lot of things she says that she doesn't understand and deferred to my judgement
So now after months of going back and forth on whether or not she'll be able to be home like she wanted we now know that "going home" isn't an option. Now we have a semi empty house to deal with.. My youngest cousin used it as a flophouse while my grandma was there and with her blessing he continues to use it even though he breaks her rules of not smoking in it and having strangers inside it. I look at it that while family heirlooms can walk out the door it does provide foot traffic in the now crime ridden neighborhood that the house sits in. I used to get more angry and worked up about it, but since my grandma won't tell him he can't stay there is not much I can really do so I had to just let it go.
However there is the matter of the stuff inside it. Grandma had a plan for me to distribute out the items she had marked to go to certain family members to them and then sell the rest of the items that have no value as family items. This should have been easy however , it hasn't been. There are three of us designated to get stuff . Me , my dad and my aunt. Split the big stuff in thirds. Not so hard except that my aunt is to get the house upon my grandma's death. That is until the financial situation hit me. With $5,000 a month in care costs I am burning through the tiny bit of savings she had like wildfire.
I mentioned this to my family that we couldn't continue this way she couldn't afford to support two households and that we would have to seriously look at either someone else taking over the house insurance and utilities or it might be best to speed up getting the family stuff out and speed up possibly selling or renting the house for extra income. They all agreed and did nothing. Whether this was due to denial of the true situation or something else it fell to me to get things started.
I visited my grandmother's elder law attorney and we started forming a plan to protect her assets in the event we had to apply for Medicaid (which is a definite thing now). The attorney says to protect things that the house needs to be sold because once we apply for Medicaid it will be gone to the state. This is true as I was a supervisor at the office for years. The only chance to protect anything for her to have hairdos and such is to sell it and put the proceeds in a trust . It's also the only chance for me to be able to give anything besides household items to my aunt.
For all this it has been the drama over the stupid stuff that has been annoying to me. There is always some excuse some kernel of accusation that the decisions that are being made aren't my grandmother's that someone is getting left out. Then there are the health issues (mental and physical ) that plague my family. Our inability to directly communicate what we are feeling or thinking . Issues between my grandma and me, my aunt and my grandma, my aunt and my dad and who knows what else swirling beneath the surface needing to be brought out in the open yet flowing under the surface of our interactions like the hot magma under a volcano. While we love each other it is tinged with past hurts, regrets and resentments that are coming to the surface in the form of dealing with stuff. Not to mention that several of them have developed their own serious health issues that they need to concentrate on vs. concentrating on this.
Frankly I'm tired of it.There is no reason to keep a house around that is just costing her money at this point. If i can get this settled then we can all do what we need to do and not have to worry about ti anymore.
