Taking Care of Your Parents: My Own Story

When you’re trying to make the right decision for your aging parent, it is easy to
fall into the ‘management’ mode.

• Review your choices
• Look at the pros and cons of each choice
• Make the best decision you can based on the empirical evidence in front of you.

The problem is, that has all the warmth and caring of an accounting (my apology to my accountant friends). No, you have to go further.

When my mother refused the care-giver in her home recently, both of my brothers decided a slower, ‘walk before you run’ approach might be best. My interviews and analysis were no match for […]

All three of us (brothers) are trying to put the best face on helping Mom. In- home care now seems inevitable. We’re interviewing candidates, trying out friends of the family, taking Mom’s ideas into account, and hoping for the best.

As we look at bringing a stranger into her life to help care for her basic needs, we’re also living our own, individual lives. Busy at work. Sometimes at play. We’re trying to give Mom our best without missing a beat in our personal and professional lives. At times, we’re doing both badly. At least that is how it feels.

The Bible […]

With all that I’ve shared over the past several dozen blogs, I have danced around, as we all do, one of the main questions that none of us who are caring for an aging loved-one ever wants to face: “What will I do if I think Mom is no longer able to live alone and care for herself?”  I pray you never reach that moment or, if you do, you reach it with your aging parent’s participation.

With my mom, we are facing that ever-increasingly obvious question. We are trying valiantly to allow Mom to stay where she is comfortable, where […]

Sometimes, when we’re wrestling with the nuances of taking care of our 86-year-old mother, we stumble over our own feet.

One of us will say “We must replace that old chair. It’s so worn and beaten down, it looks awful and it”s so hard to get in and out of.” Or another of us will will say “I know Mom isn’t getting enough vegetables. She eats the same thing all the time.”

Both of these statements may be true, but you have to balance doing what is ‘right’ with allowing Mom to have things the way she likes them. One thing I […]

The first time we tried to have all of Mom’s estate planning documents reviewed, she balked. She did not want to address ‘that stuff.’ We weren’t in any hurry for Mom to need a will or a power of attorney document, but we also didn’t want to be in an emergency situation later, trying to hurriedly get done what should have already been in place.

The second time (probably six years between the first and second attempts) we were more insistent, and Mom was slightly more amenable to the task. Never mind that we had to sit on either side of […]

My brothers and I are doing our best to care for Mom. If you’ve followed my story at all, you know that we, like most families, are struggling with things like when is the right time to address living arrangements (having the talk with your parents), financial matters, appointing an attorney in fact through a power of attorney and so forth. We never thought about mobility. . .

When you think of “Mom” your mind goes to a picture of your mother. For most of us, our mental picture of our mother is one where she is smiling, vibrant and […]