Author Topic: Dealing With Aging Parents  (Read 63711 times)

Offline Kerry

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Re: Dealing With Aging Parents
« Reply #30 on: July 25, 2007, 10:35:48 am »
Kerry - you made me cry. So beautiful.

I think you're right...... My mum, sister and I were with my gran holding her hand when she passed away in the hospital bed - she had been rushed there hours earlier form the nursing home. She also had cancer but we only found that out after she died.

The death rattle was setting in and she hadn't said a word since we'd arrived really - then just before she died she just whispered 'Peter' and she was gone in seconds.

That was my grandpa. I'm positive he had come to get her.



I'm sure your grandpa was there, Kelda.
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Offline delalluvia

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Re: Dealing With Aging Parents
« Reply #31 on: July 25, 2007, 09:57:05 pm »
Kerry and Kelda

 :'(

How wonderful.  That does indeed also give me great comfort.

Offline Shasta542

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Re: Dealing With Aging Parents
« Reply #32 on: July 27, 2007, 12:54:47 pm »
That's sad. Sometimes parents have no clue what a priceless treasure their kids are. I hope you realize your own worth and take care of yourself.

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Offline Kelda

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Re: Dealing With Aging Parents
« Reply #33 on: July 27, 2007, 01:57:44 pm »
That's sad. Sometimes parents have no clue what a priceless treasure their kids are. I hope you realize your own worth and take care of yourself.



Marleen,

Shasta is right you are a great person and your Mum is lucky to have such a caring daughter in her life. It's a very tru saying - you can choose your friends and not your family.

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Re: Dealing With Aging Parents
« Reply #34 on: July 28, 2007, 12:25:10 am »
I cannot believe that I am writing this here, but I am.

My situation is a lot like yours Jess.  I was supposed to go see my mom today. Asked her what she wanted to do.

"Buy chicken".  I said "that's it?".  She said yes, she's being honest, she doesn't want to see me at all, she just  needs to go shopping.  She said she saw me a few days ago, she doesn't really care to see me again, she just need the ride, and if I don't like it I shouldn't come.

So that's a tiny portion of what my life is really like.  I spent my whole life trying to please her and that is what I get for it.

Amazing isn't it? How they feel like they can say anything to us.

I finally stopped talking to my mother for a full year. It wasn't as hard as I would have thought. I was talking to her one night and she said something horrible. and I just hit a wall I guess. I sat there looking at the phone and didn't speak. She realized she had gone too far and tried to make up....but I hung up the phone and knew that I had had enough. I just wasn't going to go thru it anymore.

I did finally start talking to her again. A year later. but she was a LOT better.....

I think she felt I was ALWAYS going to be there so it was ok to vent on me.....and she learned I wouldn't take it anymore.

she is beginning to slip back into that pattern though....I may have to do it again. And pray nothing bad happens to her in that year!  :-\

Offline David In Indy

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Re: Dealing With Aging Parents
« Reply #35 on: July 28, 2007, 12:46:06 am »
It was the 30th anniversary of my Dad's death last May. He was a dear, sweet, gentle man, who loved me unconditionally. I still miss him and sometimes feel his presence very close to me.

My Mum died 16 years ago at age 80. She lived independently in her own home right to the end. She was sharp as a tack mentally and I'm sure she could have gone on forever, if it wasn't for the wretched cancer that carried her off. I lived near my Mum and we saw each other every day, when I would usually drop in to say hello on my way home from work. In the last couple of years of her life, she leaned on me for more support with such things as cleaning, laundry and shopping. I never viewed these things as tasks or chores. Rather, they were things I lovingly wanted to do for my darling Mummy.

On the night my Mum died, I was sitting alone with her, alongside her bed, holding her hand. I still can't explain why I had sat longer than usual with her that particular night. I usually visited her after work and sat with her for a while. She was on morphine during the last three weeks of her life, and was sometimes unaware that I was there. For some reason, on that final night, I sat on with her, longer than usual. Just before she passed away, I felt the presence of my father in the room very strongly. I knew that he was there to greet Mum and take her away with him again, just as he had taken her away with him as his bride, all those years ago, when they were so young and in love. It was an extremely strong feeling of Dad's  presence in the room. I remember thinking, as I sat there holding Mum's hand, that Mum had been in the room with me when I took my first breath in this life and I wanted to be in the room with Mum when she took her last. I saw it as a great privilege to have been with my Mum at the time of her passing, and I have no doubt that when my time comes, my Mum and Dad will be there beside my bed, holding my hand, just as I held Mum's. I don't view this as something sad. Rather, it provides me with great comfort.
   

Kerry, what you said really touched me! Both your Mother and Father sound like they were wonderful people. I'm sure I would have liked them very much had I had the privilege of meeting them.  :)

Your post also reminded me of the day of my own Mother's death. She had struggled with Leukemia and died on a Monday morning. Two days earlier I had a very nice visit with her. She was alert and talkative and we discussed many things, including my plans for the rest of my life. Mom had a tendency to be a little bit nosey sometimes!  :)

That night and the following day she began coughing up blood and lapsed into a deep coma. The hospital called Dad early that Monday morning and warned him the time was getting very close. Dad called both me and my sister and an hour after his call we were both at St. Vincent hospital gathered around Mom's bedside. Several hours passed and Susan (my sister) and I decided to go downstairs to take a quick walk outside in the fresh air. I remember it was drizzling that day and breezy. When we returned to Mom's room, she had just passed. It was then I realized just HOW MUCH that awful disease had whittled away at her body. There she was, a tiny figure of a woman laying on a rubber sheet. Her eyes were partially closed and her mouth was stretched wide open. I'll NEVER get that vision out of my head as long as I live. I walked to her bedside, and kissed her goodbye on her forehead, then I closed her mouth and eyes.

A minister walked into the room minutes later and said "I understand you all are Catholic. Would you mind someone from the other side of the tracks praying with you for a moment?" We all joined hands and recited the 23rd Psalm.

I left for home just after we finished the prayer. I couldn't take it anymore. When I arrived at my house, I noticed a hawk feather outside on my deck. It is the belief of the Lakota people that a spirit will leave a feather when visiting. I've never seen any hawks near my house then or since. I've often wondered if Mom left it there for me.

We buried Mom three days later; September 25, 2003 on my 41st birthday.  :'(

There's not a day goes by that I don't think about my mother and all the lessons she taught me. Someday I hope to see her again in a better place.  :)
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Re: Dealing With Aging Parents
« Reply #36 on: July 28, 2007, 12:50:49 am »
[snip]
There's not a day goes by that I don't think about my mother and all the lessons she taught me. Someday I hope to see her again in a better place:)

you will.

 ;)

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Dealing With Aging Parents
« Reply #37 on: July 28, 2007, 01:37:12 am »
I feel so lucky. My situation is hard, but it isn't as hard as it could be, for so many reasons. I'm lucky because:

-- My mother is almost always friendly and nice and supportive and upbeat.

-- She's oblivious to her condition. It's hard for us -- my brother and me. But she feels good and, even though she's in a nursing home, doesn't know anything is wrong.

-- She's in a nice nursing home. Nobody else would be qualified to care for her. My own family already is flying into smithereens, even without the presence of a 75-year-old with dementia.

-- She is financially secure. About 10 years ago, I talked her into getting long-term-care insurance. I highly recommend this for all middle-class aging people. I only made a point of it with her because I was writing a lot of personal-finance stuff back then, and I kept talking to PF advisors who would bring up the importance of LT care insurance. So I talked my mom into getting it. Thank God!!! For now that insurance, for which she paid $1800 a year for maybe six years, pays more than her $70,000 a year nursing-home expenses.

LT-care insurance is not for either the very rich (who can pay for their own nursing care) or the very poor (who might struggle to meet the premiums, and in any case will get government help). But for middle-class people, it's ... well, it's the only insurance I've ever seen that even pays back the equivalent of what you've paid in, let alone many many times more.




Offline delalluvia

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Re: Dealing With Aging Parents
« Reply #38 on: July 28, 2007, 01:34:56 pm »
I feel so lucky. My situation is hard, but it isn't as hard as it could be, for so many reasons. I'm lucky because:

-- My mother is almost always friendly and nice and supportive and upbeat.

-- She's oblivious to her condition. It's hard for us -- my brother and me. But she feels good and, even though she's in a nursing home, doesn't know anything is wrong.

-- She's in a nice nursing home. Nobody else would be qualified to care for her. My own family already is flying into smithereens, even without the presence of a 75-year-old with dementia.

-- She is financially secure. About 10 years ago, I talked her into getting long-term-care insurance. I highly recommend this for all middle-class aging people. I only made a point of it with her because I was writing a lot of personal-finance stuff back then, and I kept talking to PF advisors who would bring up the importance of LT care insurance. So I talked my mom into getting it. Thank God!!! For now that insurance, for which she paid $1800 a year for maybe six years, pays more than her $70,000 a year nursing-home expenses.

LT-care insurance is not for either the very rich (who can pay for their own nursing care) or the very poor (who might struggle to meet the premiums, and in any case will get government help). But for middle-class people, it's ... well, it's the only insurance I've ever seen that even pays back the equivalent of what you've paid in, let alone many many times more.

Who do you recommend crayons?  Neither I nor my sister are very rich nor dirt poor - now.  But get us sick enough to miss several months worth of paycheck then we're no better off than a homeless person since we're supporting ourselves.

Offline Kerry

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Re: Dealing With Aging Parents
« Reply #39 on: July 29, 2007, 02:46:07 am »
When I arrived at my house, I noticed a hawk feather outside on my deck. It is the belief of the Lakota people that a spirit will leave a feather when visiting. I've never seen any hawks near my house then or since. I've often wondered if Mom left it there for me.

I have no doubt that your mother visited you on that occasion, David.
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