“In 2018, I learned I had been named the Power of Attorney for an elderly couple in South Florida. They were the parents of a childhood friend and amazing cultural anthropologist who died in 2009 after being set ablaze by a mentally disturbed man she was interviewing in Kandahar, Afghanistan. It was horrific in every way – not only the grisly manner of my friend’s death, but the fact her mother and stepfather were now pretty much alone on their approach to old age. They managed for a long while on their own, but the unraveling began soon enough. Four hours away from them by car, I began getting cryptic phone calls from their house – blithering accounts of falls and long hospital visits and missing money. Then came frantic whisper messages from their housekeeper who shared stories of the mother’s Parkinson’s progression, her inability to get out of bed and other appalling accounts of incontinence, unpaid bills, alcoholism and maxed out credit cards – and their big, old, sick dog and their non-HOA-standard yard and the three houses full of stuff they needed to sell STAT to generate cash for 24-hour home care because they were NOT going into a nursing home no way, because – the dog, remember? There were unpaid taxes, foreclosures and literally, you name it, this couple was afflicted by it. And what help was I, their reluctant Power of Attorney? Not much. Even armed with my not-always-accepted-right-away-POA credentials, I was severely – SEVERELY – ill-equipped to be effective in that role and had to rely on expensive geriatric care managers, financial professionals and caregiving services to right their ship, even a little bit. My friend’s mother died comfortably in her bed at home in 2021. I think the husband is still alive today, though I’m afraid to ask. This three-year tussle with the geri-scaries changed my life – and inspired (scared) me into a newfound obsession with senior life planning.”
— Anonymous
“I could probably write a book after shepherding my in-laws and my parents through independent living, assisted living and hospice. My husband’s dad had Alzheimer’s but his mom was alert and mostly oriented to time and place up until the last few weeks of her 94 years. My dad had Frontotemporal Dementia and began losing his speech about two years before he died. My mom was alert and aware until the end. Independence. That’s the key to everything. No one wants to lose their independence. Sometimes it’s just gradually eroded and other times it’s lost in big chunks. Trying to find the balance between independence and safety (both physically and financially) is crucial to everyone’s happiness. Loneliness is a big deal for many. Our parents were lucky to have friends and family but we saw so many people in assisted living who had no one, or only some relatives far away who called a few times a year. What we won’t do: Long term care insurance. Luckily we are in a position to save and plan without too many worries of outliving our funds. Both sets of parents paid into LTC insurance for a long time. My parents chose a policy that would pay for in-home care. When it came time to use it the caps on monthly expenses for caregivers were too low for them to stay where they were and the policy didn’t cover ALF so it was a waste. My husband’s parents chose a policy that paid for care in ALF or Skilled Nursing. It started paying after the 1st 90 days. My father-in-law dad died within six months so only used three months worth of coverage. His mom died within eight weeks of moving into the ALF and never used a dime of her coverage. I would imagine that there are more varied options available today.
While my MIL and mother were both “with it” when they became widows their decision making abilities had diminished and they worried about things that had never been issues in the past. The best example is that my parents told us (I am youngest of 5) all our lives that they were planning on spending the last dime on the last day and we shouldn’t expect an inheritance. Once my dad died my mother was so worried about money and we kept telling her that she didn’t need to be because there was plenty. The reason she was worried? She wanted to be able to leave us something!
I have a million more stories- getting old sucks. Big lesson I will try to remember when my kids put us in “the home” is that they love us and want what’s best.”
— Anonymous
“As you may know, my 87-year-old father had a stroke last Aug. 2. It finally convinced my parents to leave their big Florida home, with hard floors, with a pool, on a canal, blah blah blah, for a retirement community that has all four tiers of care. And it’s a good fucking thing, too. Because while he recovered nicely from the first stroke, he had another far worse one in April. The community they moved into last November would not have taken him had the second stroke come first. So, in a perverse way, the first stroke was something of a Godsend. Now, my 86-year-old mom is in independent living. He’s in the skilled-nursing wing, just an elevator ride and 100-yard indoor walk from her apartment. What have we learned that we won’t repeat? We will not wait too long to leave our two-story home and move into a place where we can build a group of friends and support system before we need it, and where our daughter can be certain we will be cared for as we age. I begged my parents for years to get out of that house. They’d visit retirement communities, eat the free lunch, but not make a move. Then, my dad had a stroke and everyone panicked. We were super lucky just to find a place for them to go, let alone a place they love, which they do. The chance they would have had to take something they didn’t love were high at that point, because they HAD TO GO SOMEWHERE. I credit the Holy Spirit. There’s no other explanation.”
What have we learned that we won’t repeat?
- We will not wait too long to leave our two-story home and move into a place where we can build a group of friends and support system before we need it, and where our daughter can be certain we will be cared for as we age. I begged my parents for years to get out of that house. They’d visit retirement communities, eat the free lunch, but not make a move. Then, my dad had a stroke and everyone panicked. We were super lucky just to find a place for them to go, let alone a place they love, which they do. The chance they would have had to take something they didn’t love were high at that point, because they HAD TO GO SOMEWHERE. I credit the Holy Spirit. There’s no other explanation.
- We will be certain that our health care powers of attorney, durable powers of attorney, living wills and do-not-resuscitate orders are all up-to-date and are printed on the right color paper. Yes, really. Florida, where my parents and you both live, requires the DNR be on yellow paper. EMTs, emergency rooms and other health care facilities will disregard it if it’s on white paper. Also, my father’s POAs and living will, which were done and executed in 2002, had to be updated before anyone would accept them. We were lucky that he was lucid enough the day my parents’ lawyer went to his bedside to update them. Had he not been “of right mind,” we would have had to go through a long and costly guardianship process before we could, say, engage his long-term care policy.
- We have already transferred our assets into a revocable trust. That way there won’t be probate or estate tax issues for either one of us or our kiddo. Again, we are fortunate their lawyer was able to do the same for my parents’ assets, which are considerable. My mom would have been in a world of hurt had my father passed before we knew the ramifications of not moving them. Especially in Florida.
- We will replace our automobiles every five years after age 70, to ensure that we are not driving cars we can’t count on into our old age. Now that they are 86 and 87, it doesn’t make sense to replace my parents’ 13-year-old Camry, which my mom insists on continuing to drive despite the pleas of her children to stop and call Uber.”
— Anonymous
“Inquire about palliative care offered through Hospice. As patient and family become overwhelmed by endless medical appointments and treatment, one really needs a patient centered program as offered through palliative care and traditional Hospice.”
— Anonymous
“After my father’s death, I created a document for my family with tons of financial information – monthly withdrawals, loan and credit card information, medical information plus the usual will and lawyer information. I also included a list of friends with their contact numbers of who would be helpful resources. I have lot of family pieces and created an inventory of those. I have declared talking about finances is like sex education when kids are little. Just like everyone has private parts, we all have checking accounts. I don’t want my family having to call banks to find out if we banked there.”
— Anonymous
“Get a spreadsheet going of their monthly bills, insurance premiums, utilities, lawn care, cleaning service, pest control , income stream, doctors, regular prescriptions, In other words how is the household maintained? Who has access to their place? Getting your arms around the administrative aspects of their lives will help so nothing falls thru the cracks. Declutter too!”
— Anonymous
“There is a limit on age to having certain surgeries and treatment. Decide what that is going to be and stick to it within reason (I’m not saying we should die of a ruptured appendix). I had a most graceful aunt who said, “I’m not having physicals after 75 because I won’t be doing anything about what they find and I’d rather not know.” She died last spring well into her 90s. She also put herself in a nursing home so that her family wouldn’t have to make that decision – they actually brought her home to die.”
— Anonymous
“I had to deal with two parents who both failed to make end of life decisions in advance and am working on doing things differently for my kiddo. We’ve put together a will and filled out all of the power of attorney and medical power of attorney forms in advance. We plan to downsize as part of an upcoming early retirement move. And I’m gonna figure out how plan for the possible costs of long term care and how to bind future me to some common sense rules about when I need to stop driving, get extra help around the house, move into assisted living, move into skilled nursing, etc. By the time people are old enough to need the help, they often have lost some faculties and are no longer capable of super rational decision making, and then families have to deal with a huge mess.”
— Anonymous
“One of the best proactive things I did was sit down with my dad a couple of years ago and take notes about what to put in his obituary. I asked him a bunch of questions about history, jobs, experiences, and even what the highlights of his life were. It was very sweet and surprising to hear what he wanted – some of which I had no idea (like his exact majors in college, and that a highlight he wanted included was a walking tour of England he took a number of years ago.”
— Anonymous
Grand Plans 