Four years ago, at 8 p.m. on Valentine’s Day, my mother died. A few hours earlier I had taken a brief break from my vigil in the hospice to wander through an excessively air-conditioned Florida mall. The kiosks were overflowing with heart-shaped Mylar balloons, stuffed bears, and chocolate roses. As I surveyed the depressingly cheerful Valentine’s paraphernalia, I thought: I really should bring her something.
In Practice
Comments
Thank you for a wonderful column. It was very thoughtul. Your mother raised an amazing and caring daughter.
So true, so true. Thank you for this column.
Thank you for this column. Today is my mother's 87th birhday. I woke up this morning just wishing I could coax her out to lunch or something, but she has become so much the recluse in recent years, I already know she won't go. I have such guilt every day because I wish I could find a way to do more for her. When she refuses it just makes me feel worse, like I am not doing enough. Today I will bring her birthday cake, a gift, and just talk with her for a while. And your wonderful column may just help me to realize that this is enough. Thank you!
My wife and I take care of her mother. I think its harder for her. I love the Annie Grannie, but, she did not rasie me, and its easier for me to be more objective. I want to thank Annie's doctors and the folks at the VNA for all the help and support they have given us. One of the things in the aritlce that I can hit home is "Old age and pain" can make some folks more demanding and cranky. Helping anyone in pain, and especailly the elderly is not easy. In our case, Annie has realtively minor problems. To those folks who are less fortunate, my words can not express my sympathy for you and your loved ones.
Thank you for this column. My 92-year-old father has lately been hospitalized for complications caused by dementia, while my 90-year-old mother is a wonderful person with no short-term memory. In the midst of it all, I just went to Florida to visit my aging mother-in-law, who has similar issues. My wife and I love our surviving parents, and your comments really hit home. An unusual source of guilt for me has been leaving my father to visit my mother-in-law. It's "old age and pain" that forced us to send Dad to the hospital. Your words speak to a whole generation: We are not alone.
Both my wife and I can relate to this article. Myself and my sister did the Florida commute to be with both my mother and later my father. It is a very hard thing to go through. My Dad had COPD and it was a difficult way to go. My Mom had lymphatic cancer and also had a tough time of it. And now, it is my wife's mother who is living at home alone and needs attention. Her mind is not what it used to be and her daily wine intake has become the focus of her life. So, my wife must regulate her wine intake very carefully. Using "tricks" so that her mother does not consume too much and possibly fall down and break a bone. My wife has learned how to deal with the situation. And has some help from her two brothers. But, the rest of her siblings are pretty much useless. One of whom who had been living at home (rarely employed and spending his mother's money on himself..uggghhh). This brother, after being taken to court, finally split the country, leaving Mom on her own. So, my wife now checks in on her pretty much daily. Except when one of her brothers comes up to check on her. So, I can empathize with the sentiments expressed in this article.
Mom's lived too long and that really stinks. Dad died at 58 and that really stunk too. When my time comes I want to go out like Nelson Rockefeller did:
http://nymag.com/news/features/scandals/nelson-rockefeller-2012-4/
We reinvent the death process with every parent. Remember when those "Death Panels" were in the news? It was really a discussion about this very topic but it was instead polticized by the right in order to try to kill Obamacare. And yes...I lost my dad to ten months of hosptals and rehab, and our family was totally unprepared for how to deal with those last, very horrible, ten months!
It can be very difficult for children to attend to elderly failing parents. Trying to keep them at home in their 90's while getting them to accept services to assist in the home, dealing with home healthcare Dr. Appointments, Procrit shots etc. There is a lot of constant tension that takes so much out of the care givers but at the same time is understandable that most elders want to hang on to every last shred of independence.
It is obvious there was a strong bond between this doctor and her mother. The demon being fought here is end of life disease, something not under anyone's control with present knowledge. To free ourselves of the guilt that accompanies finding homes away from home when our parent's decline makes it necessary, there should be a resolved generational dictum. When their full faculties are in tact, the older figures in the family should instruct their younger adult offspring that they trust their judgment and know they will select the appropriate choices for their care when they can no longer do so. Too often a mother or father extracts an oath from their children never to put them in a nursing home, no matter how necessary. Such a coersed promise can scar a son or daughter after such a choice is made and continue after their death. The gift from parent to child should be an open, full throated declaration that the love between them also means a trust in choosing what is right for their safety and comfort, when that ability is lost by the aging family member.
Well it could be a lot worse. Mom moved into a senior housing complex in 1996 and she's been in assisted living for a couple of years now (Riverwoods at Exeter in NH, which I highly recommend if you can afford it). Between the upfront buy-in, over $400K, and the monthly rent/fee that rises as the amount of care you need goes up, Mom's currently paying about $5,000 a month, it certainly isn't a solution that most people can afford but for those who can, it's wonderful. Plus I have two sisters and a brother living in the area so once a week one of us goes up to NH to visit Mom, take her out to lunch, do her shopping not that she needs much these days, and do whatever else she needs. My wife and I could afford to do something similar when the time comes in 20 years or so but none of my siblings could, they're going to have to do it the hard way. And we only had two kids and only one lives nearby. I still want to do the Nelson Rockefeller exit myself.
Normal people cannot afford what HR Pitts has done - 400k buy in and now 5k per month?!? Wow...should have gone to law school instead of going into education.
I didn't do squat, lordchaucer, my mother did. It was her dough, not mine. Her income is about $5,000 a month, from Social Security, my late father's pension, $1,500 a month distribution from her IRA, and about $700 a month in dividends on her Procter & Gamble stock that she inherited when my father died. That barely covers her monthly bill from the senior living community. The buy in was only about $200K when she did it in 1996, financed by the equity in the house that she sold for $450,000 that my parents bought in 1967 for $36,000. Her estate does get most of the $200K back when she dies BTW. I did make it clear, did I not, that my mother's solution was a very good one but was terribly expensive and most people could not afford to do anything similar. My wife and I could afford it, we've done OK, but none of my siblings will have a similar option when their time comes. BTW I know lots and lots of lawyers who are barely getting by and we need good educators more than we need more lawyers. BTW I'm not a lawyer.