I suppose it was gradual, but from were I am it seems much quicker than I anticipated.
My father is slipping mentally quite fast. He called my yesterday about a "massive" amount of mail that has arrived. Today I will take time
to go and help him sort it all out. Monday we had a tax appointment, and I had to scramble to put together his information that he had thought he had given the tax preparer. His desk is suddenly a mess, something I am not used to seeing. For my life time I have watched this man do his business affairs' with out any challenge.
Now it seems that at 88 years old, suddenly his is not capable. Being isolated in his condominium in the facility he lives in has not been a help either I suppose. Covid has a price with our elderly. I am sure this isolation is part of this decline. His residence is beside our County Hospital, and they own and operate it. You purchase your unit, and they pay the bills. His phone bill is the only bill he has besides the $600 per month he pays for everything else. But as a business owner of a C corporation there is that to contend with. A few weeks ago he tasked me with the minutes of our annual meeting, catching me by surprise. My brother in St Louis is MIA, as his wife's health has prevented him from even making the 400 mile trip home, for the past 6 or 7 years, I have lost track.... He never saw my daughters grow up or graduate from High School... I need his help, but will have to do with out it on a face to face level anyway..
There have been some surprises that were good. Dad had thought that the trust fund Mom (she passed in 2011) and him had established (40 years ago) when my identical twin was killed in a car accident, had all been paid out to his only nieces and nephews... My two daughters. So he asked me to talk to our attorney about closing it out officially. When I checked at the Bank to make sure it was indeed depleted, I found 3 CD's a savings account and a checking account. All told $107K in value. Good news. It has to be paid out in the next 44 months before my youngest daughter reaches age 25. Soon we will start that distribution. But I realize just how challenged my father is to have not known this.... For me this is indeed a very bad sign.
So now my task list just got a lot more added to it. Couple this with my wife's mother becoming an angry person with the beginning stages of dementia and the situation is taxing my wife as we are the closest to her location, 15 miles from here. The wife is at her emotional limit dealing with an angry 79 year old who thinks the entire world is out to get her. When she leaves her apartment she knows some one has a key, and goes in and hides things from her, and uses her car at night while she is sleeping...
Some call this the "changing of the guard" part of life, and it is. But it is not pretty, to watch your loved ones deteriorate to the point both have.
Regards, Kirk
My father is slipping mentally quite fast. He called my yesterday about a "massive" amount of mail that has arrived. Today I will take time
to go and help him sort it all out. Monday we had a tax appointment, and I had to scramble to put together his information that he had thought he had given the tax preparer. His desk is suddenly a mess, something I am not used to seeing. For my life time I have watched this man do his business affairs' with out any challenge.
Now it seems that at 88 years old, suddenly his is not capable. Being isolated in his condominium in the facility he lives in has not been a help either I suppose. Covid has a price with our elderly. I am sure this isolation is part of this decline. His residence is beside our County Hospital, and they own and operate it. You purchase your unit, and they pay the bills. His phone bill is the only bill he has besides the $600 per month he pays for everything else. But as a business owner of a C corporation there is that to contend with. A few weeks ago he tasked me with the minutes of our annual meeting, catching me by surprise. My brother in St Louis is MIA, as his wife's health has prevented him from even making the 400 mile trip home, for the past 6 or 7 years, I have lost track.... He never saw my daughters grow up or graduate from High School... I need his help, but will have to do with out it on a face to face level anyway..
There have been some surprises that were good. Dad had thought that the trust fund Mom (she passed in 2011) and him had established (40 years ago) when my identical twin was killed in a car accident, had all been paid out to his only nieces and nephews... My two daughters. So he asked me to talk to our attorney about closing it out officially. When I checked at the Bank to make sure it was indeed depleted, I found 3 CD's a savings account and a checking account. All told $107K in value. Good news. It has to be paid out in the next 44 months before my youngest daughter reaches age 25. Soon we will start that distribution. But I realize just how challenged my father is to have not known this.... For me this is indeed a very bad sign.
So now my task list just got a lot more added to it. Couple this with my wife's mother becoming an angry person with the beginning stages of dementia and the situation is taxing my wife as we are the closest to her location, 15 miles from here. The wife is at her emotional limit dealing with an angry 79 year old who thinks the entire world is out to get her. When she leaves her apartment she knows some one has a key, and goes in and hides things from her, and uses her car at night while she is sleeping...
Some call this the "changing of the guard" part of life, and it is. But it is not pretty, to watch your loved ones deteriorate to the point both have.
Regards, Kirk
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