AGING PARENTS

all of that love and care you showed, it really sounds like it made a big difference in making things easier for him. my condolences to you and your family.

Daddy's birthday is in two days. we're going to have to cancel our plans to have dinner at the same restaurant we took him to two years ago, but it's ok - we can postpone and can do later, and her and I will be together on the day.

we're all getting more emotional again as the day comes. last year, he spent his birthday with us at home, and we took him to one of his fav Italian restaurants.

the other day I was trying to look up mom's medical records at AdventHealth, looking for bloodwork, and I pulled it up, but it was dad's account, registered under her name. i saw his last order releasing him to hospice, but the thing I wasn't ready for was the profile pic.

Advent started taking pics of the patients upon admission, which they never previously did, for the in-room tablet. so in the account was his frail face with the tubes under his nose.

that's not how I remember you Dad. I'll always remember your face being full of life even as shit collapsed all around you. thank you for everything. i'll always be your boy

Mom seriously fucked me over and i'm livid. I know she didn't do it on purpose but i'm still upset.

bottom line on top, I can claim her as a dependent for last year, which I only discovered last September. I told her I was going to do this 5 or 6 times. she was fine with it (especially since I loan her money on occasion, so this would put me in a better position to do so). Because I waited so long to do it, I was still going to get approximately a $550 refund this year. Mom is getting no refund, owes no taxes, and isn't even legally required to file due to low income.

however, she has been convinced all year that she has to. I've clarified her 5 to 6 times she does not have to and even showed her the IRS regulations on this. Every time, she believes me for a little while, then two weeks later convince herself she has to file again, just because she got tax forms in the mail, so we have the conversation again. I also told her point blank - if you file jointly w/ dad for last year, and you're not claiming a refund, I *can't* claim you - so don't do it as it will cost me a lot of money!

The only thing we were unclear about is that PPL fucked up her caretaker payment tax form, not properly labeling the payments as Difficulty of Care. You can recharacterize these monies on the tax form itself, but since mom wasn't required to file, I wasn't sure if she actually had to do this or not, and whether it'd impact my ability to claim her. Mom said she'd go on her Turbotax and ask them in the help chat, so I wrote out the question for her in detail.

She not only never asked it, but she also secretly filed her taxes and didn't mention it to me at all. as a result, I went to file mine, and it was rejected, telling me she was already claimed. now I go from $550 refund to owing almost $1000, unless she files an amended return, and I file mine by paper. meaning a 2+ month delay, AND the possibility I don't get the money at all, and having no idea until they decide whether I'm getting $550 or owing close to $1000.

I'm trying not to be mad because I know she didn't do it on purpose but it's the principle of not listening to me when I said not to do this thing that would harm me financially and her doing it anyway. and then acting the aggrieved one when I got upset when I found out tonight.

oh it's actually even dumber now, she is apparently getting a $5 refund (no idea how), but she deliberately left the box indicating she could be claimed as a dependent unchecked. which makes even less sense because we talked about that at length.

when I talked to her about it she immediately apologized in a way that was meant to make me feel sorry for her, how she's going through a lot, and I asked "am I not allowed to be upset?", like...why is it that anytime I'm rightfully upset about something it gets turned around on me?

going for a drive.....fuck this

Hoo boy, trying to get my parents moved about 900 miles to be close to me. It took me and my siblings a few months of effort to persuade them that they need to move now to be close to one of us, because they are developing and will continue to develop needs that will make it hard for them to stay where they are — in a semi-rural setting with all of us hours (and in my case several states) away. For assorted reasons it makes most sense for them to move to where I am rather than where my siblings are. So my 79-yr-old dad has been packing boxes maniacally for a few months now and the strain of it all is overwhelming both of them. My job is to find the moving company and set all that up; find them a rental house to move into in the short term until they can sell their current house and then buy one down here; find them a doctor and start working on getting them a Medicare plan here; and then probably make multiple trips up and back to supervise the move and drive both of their cars down here. And all of that is supposed to happen by like June.

If we all survive, they should end up in a better situation. But whooee the next few months are gonna be fun.

congrats on getting them to listen/agree to move. i failed at that w my mom because she is the most stubborn person ever born and i am but one human being she doesn't actually want to be closer to.

lol I thought my dad was the most stubborn person ever born, but I guess he's second-most.

We moved more local a few years back for my in-laws as this thing does as time does. 3 years in and we (me and my wife) are intensely frustrated. All the passive aggressive "be near" has been for nothing, her (divorced parents) dad has basically decided to be resistant to any action to help him keep living. He is a Viet Vet, now blind and continues to insist living in a tiny old house with minimal support.

We are at the point that we have done what we did and live with it. Everything could be a lot worse but we gave up a lot that worked for us to try and help with them (very much my wife's ethos than mine). It is going to keep hurting for a good few more years and that is before we have to try and sort their shit out.

"If we all survive, they should end up in a better situation. But whooee the next few months are gonna be fun."

try and take care of yourself. its a very stressful process. drink lots of water? wait, i meant whisky...

anyway, do what you can to not go bonkers with it all. one step at a time.

i'm terrible at advice.

and i am lucky enough to be blessed with a spouse who will take my father to appointments while i work. and get his banking in order. and help with the bulk of the house selling and insurance stuff. wait, what do i do again? i must do something.

has this ever happened to you guys? you try and build a business for 15 years and work a ton and cook meals for 4 people for almost 20 years and then your two kids finally go off to school and you want to relax a little and then there is a pandemic and your mom dies and your dad looks like death so he moves in with you and then your 80-something year old aunt who you never talk to and who is the most prickly pear you will ever meet decides that SHE is going to move to your town as well because she's lonely by herself - she was near my dad before he moved in with us - and gets an apartment and is coming here in april and when the inevitable happens and my dad goes - though lord knows he might outlive me - maria and i will be her only family as far as the eye can see and will no doubt have to deal with HER long into our dotage because she is way too prickly to die.

we actually think about moving and not telling anyone. my dad will just look up from his Wall Street Journal or his CJ Box book or his episode of Blue Bloods and wonder where we went to and he will have to walk to Walgreens for all his meals. he'd manage...

just a little venting...nothing to see here.

its always nice to beth parker's name at the top of this thread. she just e-mailed me last week to rant about science fiction podcasts.

Yeah - I feel that vibe Scott (that is awful and I am sorry for you). Except we just gave up a ton of shit we liked to walk into whatever that turns out to be.

I need to meditate more.

There is that running point in the US that the generation of mass growth, success, glory and everything is also happily choosing to hand its care to their kids in a wonderful "plop" basket. Cos why wouldn't you?

Tell Beth hi from us.

Scott I hope it works better than you're fearing, it sounds like you are a generous and loyal person who feels for his family, and ultimately that makes a better life than an asshole who's able to cut people off. But it comes at a cost.

I feel these posts. My siblings and I talked and none of us wanted to move, we all like where we are (and much love to Rochester, but if I wanted to live there I wouldn’t have left). Having my folks here does still restrict us, in the sense that my wife and I were tentatively talking about moving elsewhere in a few years and now obviously that is on hold. But we do love our current home and community, so staying longer is ok.

As I grapple with these move logistics part of me is like, we shoulda just let them stay where they are. But I know that’s not good either.

best wishes to yall and yr families <3

My uncle died the night before last. Throat cancer got too hard to endure and he applied for MAID and went through with it. He was 70. He didn’t tell my mom he was sick, she just got the news after he’d passed. No funeral or service or anything.

Felt a little vindictive, but he was always the odd uncle. He wasn’t close to my mom or her other brothers. I always liked him, he was the arrested development uncle, shared his comics with me when I was 8, got me interested in Talking Heads when I was 10.

My mom isn’t showing any signs of grief, she never really got on with him. She was more piqueish herself about my health over the phone. “Smoking is how you get throat cancer.” I know, mom, I know.

Still, I’m like “wow I’m halfway between age 20 and dead at age 70.” My mom and stepfather are getting pretty old. By default I assume I’m the one who will need to live with them when they need it, I’m the gay one, my brothers all have wives and families.

I’ve had a tentative plan to move out west to be closer to my brothers and my mom, the plan is now less-tentative. I think I’m gonna be a good care-child? I’d like to be. Anyway. Sad to lose an uncle. First of my mom’s generation to go.

Sorry to hear that indeed -- and I get this sense of planning and wondering, though it's at best very vague for me still. One of my mom's siblings died of a heart attack some years back, nobody was close to him -- a classic fuckup, being blunt, but I hope wherever he was at gave him some peace. The real loss was my dad's younger brother and only sibling out of nowhere in 2015; the fact that it's almost been a decade now and my dad's the only one of his core family left is very strange to think about.

I think I’m gonna be a good care-child?

This is something I've resolved too, even tho it wasn't a role I ever particularly planned on. Not that there were really any plans, which maybe would have been good if there were, but you can't force these things. Until about 6 months ago I think my dad's plan was "We stay where we are until we die." But subsequent events persuaded him otherwise, and now we have actual moving dates on the calendar. I don't have any exact expectations of what it will be like to suddenly live near my nearly-80-year-old parents after 30-plus years of NOT living near them, but I've just kind of decided I'm willing to do whatever that is.

Sorry about your uncle. My dad's brother died a few years ago, the first one of that generation for either of my parents (they both have/had two siblings). He was the youngest of my aunts/uncles but also the unhealthiest for decades (chronically overweight, smoker, addiction issues, COPD). My parents and the rest of their siblings all seem poised at the moment to make it into their 80s, but obviously anything can happen at this point. I've become accustomed to reading lots of obituaries of people famous and otherwise who died younger than my parents are already. On one hand it can seem a little crazy to be going to so much effort and expense to get my folks moved because we all know that at a likely maximum we're looking at 10 years at the outside. If they both keeled over tomorrow, I think they'd be as relieved as anything at not having to deal with continuing to get older. But as long as they're here, we'll do what we need to.

Big love to you both

Also going to see my dad next weekend, he’s been end-of-lifing for five years now, I feel oddly like this will be my last visit. Goddammit!! Navigating age is a psychological part-time job

Good luck, hope it's good time.

Dad has made it to 97, but he’s now in hospital receiving end of life care and probably won’t make it to the end of the week. When someone you love reaches such an advanced age it feels almost greedy or selfish to wish for more - but however old, it never seems enough once the end of the road is in sight.

I'm so sorry to hear this.

97 years, that is really something to celebrate <3

Wow @ 97. I'm sorry he is reaching the end, best thoughts to your family. That's sort of inconceivable to me. My mom is 77, it's hard for me to imagine another 10 years much less 20.

Mom has mostly not been duped by scams because she often asks me to look at things first or googles then first.

Then yesterday, has dresses for sale on Poshmart, and gets an email formatted so poorly it was obviously fake, saying her dress sold and they needed her banking info.

Nevermind the fact that the website itself showed no sale on it, and the site tells you never to give your bank info to buyers, she clicked on the link, proceeded to give these people all of her banking info, and only realized it was a scam when they asked her for $200 to verify her account.

Now she has to cancel her debit card AND get a new checking account number. I really hope this is not a sign of a mental decline because she's never been foolish like that before. And if she gets cleaned out, it'll impact us both.

And to report it, just now, she juxtaposed two digits and called a scam impersonator instead of her bank.

Praying she's just brain farting today because I really don't have the energy to become her POA agent

Yeah my mom fell for a scam a year back that started with a fake iPhone alert, proceeded to have her call a phone number and told her she need identity fraud protection, and then in this case asked my mom to drive to a convenience store with a bitcoin atm to make a deposit.

Fortunately we caught her before the last part.

But I think it wasn't cognitive impairment here as much as confusion followed by shame. And the scammers knew how to prey on the shame.

trying to explain to my mother why she can't just cash a check made out to my deceased father in her own bank account is like explaining tax codes to kindergartners. i gave up after a half hour.

My project continues: After months of effort by everyone — especially my dad, who made packing up their house basically a full-time job for about four months — I have successfully moved my parents' stuff down to a rental house about a mile from me. Step 2 is actually moving them. I'm going to fly up next weekend and drive back down with both of them. This will be ... interesting. My sister is also moving here, which is great. But it also means I'm suddenly going to be living in the same city with most of my immediate family, after not even living in the same state with any of them for most of the last 30 years. Huh.

The move won't be complete until they buy a house here, which they can't do until they sell their current house in western NY. A lot of change for people who are turning 78 and 80 this year.

wild amount of work - glad your folks have you and your sister, but wow that sounds like a huge undertaking. my only advice is - leave breathing time for you. but it's a good thing you're doing!

eightysomething dad had a "mild to moderate" stroke and wow this is not easy

it is not. do you have support (family or otherwise)?

Many sympathies. My parents have seen a few friends have strokes and their subsequent struggles, and I think that’s the thing they’re both maybe most afraid of (on the endless scale of ways they could suffer a loss of quality of life).

yep support system is good both familial and financial, just kind of reckoning with putting my life on hold and shifting back into parent care mode

no physical or speech issues, just diffuse cognitive problems that mean he can't be alone right now... hoping for some recovery in the next couple of months but the brush with mortality has everyone shook

understandably
this period of life is such a monster!!

glad to hear you have people <3

I'd mentioned upthread how my dad had started to show irrtional demential symptoms well, it turns out not too long ago he had some minor strokes (like they didnt even have syptoms) that have caused "vascular dementia". It got to the point where mum just couldnt be his carer anymore as he was ust getting up in the night and falling down and incontinent and all that.

So he's just gone into a home. I know my dad. He used to gruffly say "if I ever go senile or end up in a home just effing shoot me". I'm sure some part of him is still in there thinkin the same thing. Mum said this morning he quietly said "I feel like I'm in prison". :( Its a nice room with comfy chairs and a lovely view and he could go walk out in the gardens and its only a 10 min walk from their house.

But my poor mum needs the help and the break. I just dont know how to process any of this. I've never been any good at dealing with other peoples frailties and illnesses, except when it is in my direct path (like a partner).

But hearing my dad confabulate in a weirdly childlike voice, nothing like the crabby, increasingly angry man he'd been the last 10 years or so is... so weird and I dont know how to feel.

Ugh so many typos in all that sorry.

oh man, sorry. it is super rough

Sorry for the both of you and your ailing parents. It's so hard to balance the person's needs with the family's needs - and the real crime is that aged care has become such an underfunded shitshow that it's difficult to find the positives in what should be a supportive and caring decision to give someone assisted living. Please be easy on yourselves, the harm caused by these strokes is the actual problem, and you're not to blame for trying to find the best way through it.

Oh dont even start me on that part. My parents are financially able to pay for good care but apparently it isnt as simple as just calling a place and slotting in, mum says she is "drowning in paperwork" trying to get all the govt funding ducks in a row. This is just 2 week respite care I dont know what the long term plan is, but he really cant live at home easily anymore.

And I live in another state, I cant just pop up there and help - theyve asked before and I had to say no because I couldnt leave work alone at the time. My brothers are helping though. I'm just the useless black sheep who left home and never calls lol

why is my biological father texting me (which i hate, because fuck typing on a phone) about how i should be on zoom calls (which i also hate, because fuck having to supply an image when there are so many other ways to communicate)

https://gifdb.com/images/thumbnail/heathers-winona-ryder-funny-idiot-tdf05zgdoz0b58dh.gif

oh, yeah

He used to gruffly say "if I ever go senile or end up in a home just effing shoot me".

I can easily understand the source of that sentiment, but at the same time it is asking your loved ones for something that is totally beyond their ability to grant. Your mom's decision to place him in the care of others was absolutely correct, in spite of his declared wishes, because they were based in the fantasy of an easy solution to one of life's most painful dilemmas. He can't help his feelings, but your mom and you are not in a position to assuage his feelings. As matttkkkk said, you are not to blame. This is a matter of necessity far more than it is a matter of choice.

My mom said the same as your dad, Trayce. Almost verbatim.And now she’s in a home and happy as a clam. Some regrets in my part, but mostly that I didn’t get her to assisted living sooner.

My mom, the person who advocated for being effing shot, was a chanfing person projecting herself into a quality of life she didn’t know and was frightened of. My decision to send her to a facility in the present, is based on a person she is now. And I believe the same is likely true for your father.

Thanks for the good thoughts, tipsy and LL! Sorry to hear that, Trayce... it's difficult, you can't settle down because you don't know how to feel or move forward.

My father isn't the gruffest guy around but after a lifetime of having him be able to handle pretty much anything life has thrown at him without ever needing to lean on me that hard, suddenly having to be the one looking after him is like an earthquake... it reverberates all through every aspect of your own life. Familiar lines are all askew, the animals are unsettled, and my compass needle is pointing towards a black void instead of north.

He's improving a little bit day by day, and as noted he has the means for quality care, but whatever the new normal is, it doesn't feel normal at all yet.