I hear ya. My parents are always coming up with reasons for me to go to their house.

Heres an idea, "hey, i got a bottle of whisky, wanna have a drink"

That one might actually work

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the world will always the world. your entire existence is defined by your response.

The post-covid rental cars are the hardest part. For the airfare COVID-related lack of change fees help, and I have enough miles on American, Delta, and United to soften the blow of the more expensive flight days.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

When my mom started going downhill, I wasn't really sure what to do. She didn't have any money and I was in one of my financial down cycles at the time. She was terrified of going to a nursing home. That's something i would mention at times when I became frustrated with her doing goofy shit like refusing to answer the phone. I feel bad about it now.

There was a time when the phone rang and rang and I rushed over to her house expecting to find her dead. She was just sitting on the couch ignoring the ringing. I don't know if she had dementia or if she just was oxygen-deprived from COPD. I asked her doctor and never really got a straight answer. I guess the symptoms were similar.

Like I said, I didn't really know what to do. This is something you only face once or twice at most. I know looking back that I left her living on her own for too long and I'm grateful nothing terrible happened. One of the worst things was another time when she didn't answer the phone and I rushed over only to find her sitting on the floor. She said, "I sat down here and then I couldn't get up. I figured someone would come eventually."

One day she tried to cook a frozen pizza with the cardboard still underneath. I unplugged her stove and started stopping by her house three times everyday and preparing her food. One day she refused to go to a scheduled doctor appointment so I went myself and told her doctor I wasn't sure what to do. He suggested hospice and that took me by surprise. He said, "I'm not really supposed to do this unless the prognosis is less than six months." I asked if it was and again, he couldn't really give an answer or didn't want to, but she had a lot of things wrong and the treatments for some made the others worse. It was a mess. Plus she was the world's shittiest patient. She didn't want to listen to this guy at all. And he's a great doctor. The best bedside manner I have ever seen.

So he prescribed hospice and they sent out a nurse who taught me what to do and I moved into her place. My wife is a saint and she got permission to work from home a couple days so I could go into the office. All my aunts and my my mom's friends think I was an angel. But I really wasn't. You have to do what you have to do.

The best thing was that once she knew she wasn't leaving her apartment, she completely relaxed. I suppose the morphine may have helped a little, but she wasn't concerned about anything with my wife and I taking care of her.

And you're right about siblings. My sister lived in Albuquerque at the time and I didn't know what she was going to do, but she completely deferred just like she should have. I was handling everything. Don't come in here and start trying to make decisions. To my sister's credit, she didn't do that.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

No doubt. I miss my mom everyday. It's a little different with my dad even though we had a great relationship. My dad was a Greatest Generation guy and his style was a lot more distant than what would be typical of today's fathers. Even so, he was a lot more present for me than the fathers of most of my friends. But those guys, they brought home the bacon and for the most part, they didn't want to be fucked with. I didn't cry when my dad died. But the following spring I was driving past Wrigley Field and I saw a guy crossing the street holding his son's hand on the way to a game. I had to pull the car over. I have no complaints with either of my parents. I wouldn't trade them for anyone else.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I think about this a lot more lately. For the most part, my folks are in decent health. My dad is a diabetic but manages it with diet and over the counter pills. The only time he ever had to have an insulin shot was about 6 years ago when his gallbladder was removed. His eyes aren't the best and he doesn't drive at night much anymore, but overall I can't complain. My mom had bypass surgery in late 2007 and will need another at some point, but again overall pretty decent.

I mainly wonder how I will deal with it, and when it will happen. If its soon, I have no idea what I'll do with my son because his papa is without question his favorite person in the world.

They're taking us to Disney World in November and I have a feeling it will be bittersweet. Great because it will be the first time there with their grandson, but sad because it might be the last time they get there. If they do get there again, it will certainly be on a limited schedule.

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This could easily turn into TL;DR.

I'll just say I definitely feel your pain with my Mom. 77 years old going on 102. It's not easy...especially since her issues are all self-inflicted and could have been prevented. My sister carries a larger burden than i do. I'm fully aware and appreciative of that, but it's still really fucking hard to deal with.

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My folks took my brother and his family and myself and my then girlfriend ( current wife ) to Disney back in 2013 for their 40th wedding anniversary. It was a very memorable and fun trip. We had tickets to do the parks 3 days so we did Epcot, Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom or whatever and then just met back up at the end of the day to swim and hang out. My brother passed 4 years later and my dad the following year. Definitely soak it in and enjoy every minute you can Frank, sounds like a great trip for you guys.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

My dad passed away 5years ago but my mom is turning 80 this year. My brother died about a year ago unexpectedly and she hasn't been the same since. My brother wasn't a good person and I truly think his wife and kids are better off. Everyone in the family knows this but I think it was a bit of a shock for my mom to see it play out that way.

Anyway, maybe it is a coincidence but seems like she has started to slip after that. She is still in really good health physically, but her mind is not the same. She will repeat herself, forget where she was going with a story, stuff like that.

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I really don't want to kill that woodpecker.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

You didn't want to kill an owl for me a months back either.

Since you love birds so much here's one

I don't deserve that. I like animals.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

You've buried the lead though... What kind of woodpecker?

I don't know. It's got a white belly and a mostly white head with a red spot on the back of its head and neck.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

A real troublemaker.

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He finds his laugh intoxicating.

I suspect you and I are similarly situated. My mom died in 2007 and my dad in 2016. Each was a bit of a rough ride at the end but I miss them both. I think about at least one of them almost every day.

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"I honestly don't see a good bet on the board here."

Mom's still living on her own at 82, but I like to have some contact about every day. I also carry in the salt and cat litter, fix what I can, air up the tires, etc. She is a very smart person, extremely regimented, proud. Now, when she forgets something, or misspells a word, we both are shocked, she would never have done that before. I pray for a quick ending, not for me, but because a slow decline would embarrass her.

Dad and I got to work together remodeling the house he grew up in for my family and on the farm for 14 years. He retired and came over every day. Even worked through the cancer as best he could. Absolutely the hardest thing I had to do was send him home one day when he just kept fucking up the simplest job he had done for decades. That was March, he died the following July. I don't need his help any more, I just wish he was around to see how great his grandkids turned out.

to both responses.

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“Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office.”- JD Vance
“My god, what an !diot.”- JD Vance tweet on Trump
“I’m a ‘Never Trump’ guy”- JD Vance

Lost my father 10 plus years ago, miss him dearly. My mom turned 80 in December and overall, she does pretty well. She won't drive far but still drives around town and lives by herself in a nice gated community with many people that could help close by. My brother and sister are in town, which is huge. There are times I feel guilty about not being closer, but since my brother and sister are there, it is taken care of. I do go down several times a year and stay with her and it does give them a break. But it is the circle of life and one that isn't that easy.

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2018
#ExtendLafleur
10 More Wins

I would never consider having to help out someone I love as a curse.

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2018
#ExtendLafleur
10 More Wins

You say that right after you say your mother lives on her own, has people and family to help her, and you live ~800 miles away. Not trying to bash you, just repeating what you said.

Someone very near to our family still has her mother alive. I think she's 92 or thereabouts. She had hip replacement surgery last fall and during rehab fell and broke her leg. Then she had to move from Asst living to a nursing home where she was essentially bedridden for several weeks. Visitors are (or at least were) limited. The mother cries all the time and wants to die to be reunited with her late husband and daughter. She doesn't want to live the way she has been.

Sure, the loved one is still alive but that doesn't mean its all smooth sailing. Maybe curse is too strong of a word, but it can certainly be a blessing and incredibly frustrating and difficult to have a parent still alive.

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My parents have talked about how they have too much house. It's my greatest hope that they will take me up on my offer to move in with me. I've told them that they can essentially have the second floor of my home. It would save them maybe forty thousand a year plus and allow me to go back to work full time.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

Did you just to choose to not read the part where I said it wasn't easy?

_________________
2018
#ExtendLafleur
10 More Wins

10 years ago my folks bought a place near Northwestern Hospital for when they couldn't deal with the house anymore. At the time I figured they would have started the transition to Chicago living by now but nope and I don't think the last two years has done anything to encourage the move. Part of me would feel more at ease with them in the City with such local medical care available and part of me can't imagine not driving up the driveway I've known for 45 years when I go to visit them. I'm grateful that they seemed to learn some lessons from the last few years of my Dad's parents lives but I'm wondering when the lesson of needing help will kick in.

I had a conversation with my parents a decade ago when my grandparents didn't want to move away from their homes of 50 plus years. I told them then that I was more interested in their well being than the home of now fifty plus years. My dad seems to be following my grandmother's lead.

Ugh.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

Even though he fell a few times and once was on the floor for hours we never could get my dad to move out of his house.

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"I honestly don't see a good bet on the board here."

it's the last vestige of "independence"

I think you'll get it when you get there. The other is the taking away of a driver's license....

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Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

The driver's license was a big issue for my dad, he still brings it up nearly two years later. He had successfully passed his driving exam (both written and field) in 2019. But he started getting lost occasionally and then didn't drive more than 20 miles for the first half of 2020 due to covid shutdowns. He went by himself to a doctor's appointment and it took him forever to get home by himself as his reaction times were slipping.

His doctor explained to him about six weeks later (at my prompting) that he couldn't drive anymore because if he got lost he could get hurt, and it really hit him hard - but he accepted the decision even though it depresses him to this day.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

my parents are late 60's. the financial advisor is almost 80 and probably going to retire. they asked if i could help "manage" their drawdown in retirement. I told them if they begin using their close friends as a CPA (my mom does everything herself right now), I would definitely help set up the accounts and manage the allocations for them.

my dad still has me buy and sell and wants hot stock tips in his play account but that account is now 2x their yearly expenses. their actual retirement accounts are 20x. basically its time.

they live in a old farmhouse in the middle of a smallish town now. that had tons of steep steps. I have no idea what they are going to do.