Making No Plans for the Journey

The journey into dementia started for my parents over 10 years ago. At the exact moment, and with various degrees of recognition, the journey into dementia started for me and for my four siblings. Both journeys have been their own kind of hell. My parents disappeared a few brain cells at a time, slowly, almost imperceptibly, without any awareness of what was happening, denying that anything at all was wrong. They wrote no wills, created no power-of-attorneys, refused to discuss death and funerals. And even when both became totally dependent on their children and on the medical system, my parents believed themselves to be coping and taking care of all daily activities. If continence of bladder and bowel counts for anything, then Mom and Dad were indeed, able to take care of themselves. Thankfully , both of them remembered the location of the bathroom, although we did have to tell Dad to turn left a few times. Dementia did not wait on my parents to realize their predicament. Dementia did not care about their lack of preparations. My Dad died two years ago without a single plan made towards his demise. I truly have spent hours considering the behavior of human beings who die without ever considering what will happen to their money, their property, and to the things that they buried or kept secret from their wives and children. It is as if they will not have to face a final passage. I am glad to be peaceful about whatever material things will remain hidden forever from the four of us. It is not so peaceful for all of my siblings.

After Dad’s death three of the children agreed that Mom had to have a power of attorney, whether she knew what this meant or not! Mother’s physician was generous in stating that Mother had the capacity to designate a power of attorney, a requirement in our state. An attorney was liberal in accepting mother’s shaking head and shaky signature as proof that she was aware that someone would, henceforth and until death, act in her best interest and on her behalf. and so the deed was done. With her signature on a durable POA and a health care POA, my youngest brother signed and agreed to this thankless assignment. I have never asked him how he felt about his appointment. I will say that this legal step became one of the first of many open wounds among the four of us. My sister’s husband wanted her to have power-of attorney. He even got his real estate license in preparation !

Mother has never given her signature on this document another thought. Her energy is spent in looking for her pocketbook, hiding in a place that she found once, but cannot find again. Although she has no official diagnosis, Mom probably suffers from Alzheimer’s. My Dad had an altogether different type of dementia, but I have found that a diagnosis does not matter at all. The end result is the same: Disabled parents, shattered family relationships, and estate nightmares. Surely other families have resolved these issues. Surely no one else. . .