“Many families are
broken over elder-care and the inheritance after death,” my daughter informs
me.
“Really?” I ask.
This seems to be
happening in our family.
“Yes,” Elsa replies.
“Look at Melody’s family. Her mother’s siblings are suing each other over their
mother’s estate. One child feels that he did not inherit enough.”
This is sad. I
know that it happens. In a way, it is happening to us.
I have no
siblings, so my mother’s estate is not an issue. However, making decisions
about her care IS the issue that causes conflicts.
There is a lot of
tension and resentment between me and mymother’s
sibling, my aunt.
My aunt is an
opinionated person. She is intelligent and fairly informed. Even though she is
older than my mother, (92) her mind is sharp and intact. She would like to be in
charge of my mother’s health-care decisions, despite the fact that she lives 610 miles away. Even with her age, she has been willing and able to travel to
see my mother several times each year, to visit, to keep my mother company and
to be a support. It is kind, generous and lovely for her to do so. But her
visits can also make life hard for me, for Alice and for my mother.
My aunt is
distraught about many things concerning my mother’s care. She feels that Alice
and I do not stimulate my mother enough. She feels that my mother does not get
out enough. She feels that my mother does not exercise enough. She feels that my mother does not
converse enough. She feels that my mother does not have the opportunity to make
decisions any more. She feels that Alice’s cooking does not excite my mother’s
palette and therefore does not entice her to eat enough. She believes that my
mother is not exposed to the news enough, either by having the opportunity to
read the NY Times herself or by having articles read to her. My aunt wants one
of us to deliver the paper daily.
My aunt makes good
points. I hear what she is saying and I try to implement many of her
suggestions as best I can. I ask Alice to make sure my mother’s music is on. I
ask Alice to take my mother outside on nice days. I bring the paper over when I
am done with it and am visiting. But, I
am not my mother’s primary caregiver. I’m like a middle-man, and I try to support
Alice, while making sure my mother’s basic needs are being met. I know that
Alice is dealing with many other things besides the NY Times, including the
daily routines, like teeth brushing, which may happen several times each day
because my mother does not remember doing them and asks to do them again. And
again. And like using the toilet, again and again. These activities are time
consuming and can take hours and hours. And this can be my mother’s morning, or
her afternoon. This is what Alice is doing with her, instead of fulfilling the
needs that my aunt has deemed so important.
What is
FRUSTRATING to me, is that whatever Alice and I are able to do, including periodic implementations of my aunt’s
suggestions, is not enough. My aunt always has more that she believes needs to
be done for my mother. Further, my aunt truly resents the decisions I have made
for my mother, specifically the decision to enter her into hospice.
“How could the
doctor recommend hospice without having seen her?” she asked. “Whose idea was
this?”
The inference, of
course, is that I am giving up on my mother and not ‘going the distance’ for
her. I want her to die. I want to kill her off. I am ‘prepared’ for her death. Her
death will make my life easier.
Well, my mother’s
doctor actually explained in May that before long, hospice would probably be in
order. A visiting nurse actually suggested that we enroll in hospice at the end
of July. Three hospice nurses actually visited and interviewed my mother in
August and felt that she was appropriate for the program. So, here we have
numerous professionals who believe
that this is the right course of action for my mother, although my aunt
disagrees.
I feel badly that
my aunt is so disappointed in this recent turn of events. But, I also feel that
it will be impossible for her to accept the issues that my mother, and Alice
and me, are actually facing. Denial is very popular in my mother’s family and I
suspect that my aunt’s reactions to these developments are denial-related. It
must be awful to think about one’s baby sister as being terminally ill. But
considering their ages, I think it’s reasonable to expect death as inevitable,
eventually.
On the other hand,
I believe that my mother and her sister and cousins have been remarkably lucky
that they are all alive and able to speak on the phone daily at ages 89, 90, 91
and 92. I sense an absence of appreciation on their parts that this amazing
phenomenon continues. If I were this age, I might expect it to end any day. But
they seem to feel it’s their right to continue speaking daily, and if any
health issue or technology issue interferes, it’s someone’s fault.
Crazy as it
sounds, I believe that I am being blamed (by my aunt and her cousin) for my
mother’s failing health and subsequent inability to think clearly, to speak
clearly or to answer phone calls. If my mother cannot function, it is because I
have over-medicated her or I have not stimulated her enough. I have not
provided pleasant meals, outings or other things that she needs.
Amazingly, I am a
working mother, daughter and wife. I believe that my primary responsibilities
are to meet the needs of: 1. my children, 2. my husband, and 3. my employer (and my
young students). I am the daughter of an elderly woman for whom I have made
sure the bulk of her daily needs are met. But my mother’s care is not my
primary job and, honestly, it is not my primary concern. She has had a long
life and has lived well for many years. She has not been happy for many of
those years and for that, I am sorry, but not responsible. Regardless, she has had her many, many years of life prior to her current illnesses.
So, in our family,
we are not fighting over money as much as we are fighting over power and decision-making
rights. We are fighting over what are reasonable health-care decisions based on
my mother’s conditions and prognoses. The cost of these conflicts is the strain
in the relationships between my aunt, her children, (my cousins,) and me. We
used to be very close and supportive of one another. There used to be lots of
communication: visits, texts, emails, Facebook messages, phone calls and abundant support.
In recent months,
that support and communication has evaporated. I believe that the evaporation centers around my aunt’s
unhappiness about my mother’s current condition and my aunt's beliefs that I am a bad
daughter and a poor care giver. I believe that she has influenced my cousins. I
believe that now our small family is fractured, just as if we were in disagreement
over a will or an inheritance.
It doesn’t have to
be this way, but at this point in time, it is this way. I accept this.
But it is sad for
all of us.
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