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PATIENCE, PLANNING AND SUPPORT: REFLECTIONS ON DEALING WITH AGING FAMILY MEMBERS
meekly in agreement, seemed confused, but allowed the security people to take his items, which they handed over to me with a knowing smile. He turned slowly to join my mom, who looked embarrassed but relieved about their flight home.
3. Back at home, a web search on the Alzheimer’s Society information page disclosed the anticipated symptoms of those with dementia. Dad’s conduct, as my mom had described it and as we had now witnessed, “ticked all the boxes” to raise significant concerns. One symptom stood out for me: there is a tendency to misplace, hide, or move household items from their regular place to inappropriate places.
Sure enough, when my mom called later that evening to report their safe arrival home, she also shared a remarkable discovery in a somewhat doubtful voice. As if, for the first time now, seeing what she had been living with my dad’s behavior in the same way I had explained to her, she explained that dad went in ahead of her when they got home. Not unusual, and she thought nothing of it. But when she went to the bedroom, her passport was on their bed, where she remembered leaving it. She knew it had not been there when they left, meaning only dad could have taken it in the first place and put it there upon their return. This gave Mom some comfort and then presented us with a considerable challenge – what to do about it.
II. Distance makes for a fonder heart but a difficult dilemma
I am not ashamed to say I cried myself to sleep that first night after somewhat distraught calls to my brother and Dad’s older sister, my aunt. At the time, my then-spouse had trouble understanding why I was so upset. I calmed down enough to explain that, effectively, with almost no notice
and no chance to say a proper “goodbye,” I had lost the
dad I knew. He was not dead, but there was likely no way to recover that version of the person I had called my dad for all of my life. All we could do was learn to cope and attempt to manage what would likely become a more marked decline in his abilities over time.
The collective challenge for Mom, my brother, and I was how to make this journey with Dad given our current state
of being: Mom was there but only just coming to grips with what she now could see was a medical condition, not a problem in her marriage. While always willing to assist, my brother was not in a position to be present most times when it might be needed, given his work commitments. He also had the additional issue of being a stepson and not wanting to intervene too much. Yours truly had the challenges we all have in raising a family while juggling a professional career, to which was added roughly 2,700 miles of highway or flight time separating me from the task and parent at issue.
One piece of good fortune was a dear friend I’d first met
in law school and his spouse. He practices in Victoria, BC, the major city on Vancouver Island, about two hours drive south of where my parents lived. His spouse works in the pharmaceutical industry with a territory that includes the area where my parents lived. Of course, sometimes having
a friend closer to the scene is helpful only because they might know of local resources or be in a position to point you in the right direction or refer you to someone local, etc. However, I received my friend’s best legal advice. His law practice focuses on estate planning and related matters while also tapping his spouse’s advice based on her reasonably close knowledge of the medical profession in and around where my parents lived.
As discussed in the next part below, just like me, you are also lawyers or have lawyer spouses, and we should remember the adage: “who acts as counsel in” their “own case has a fool for a client.” So heed the advice, and get yourself some good counsel.
The point to take away here, though, is that when you discover your loved ones are in a bind, it makes good practical sense to step back and look at what your education and training in practice can do for you. Making connections, which is much easier these days on social media platforms, can be the difference between a challenge becoming overwhelming and a merely difficult challenge. I won’t sugarcoat it to say it ever becomes easy – it never does, and there’s no way to get around it. But lightening the load and stress can start with a phone call or email to an old classmate or friend, walking down the hall at your firm and consulting a trusted partner, or grabbing lunch with a colleague in your town that you know and trust.
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