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There is something to be said for the great Suck that comes of cleaning out an elderly relative's house. Sure, you find nifty things, useful things, lists of men your grandfather served with in WWII (what the hell do we do with that stuff?) and pictures of long forgotten family and relatives, but it's overwhelming and horrifying at the same time.
All this used to mean something to someone. All this stuff is the fiber of someone's life - stuff they lived with and worked for and played with, and here we are, rummaging through it like carrion crows, deciding what is useful to us - what is valuable and should be squirrled away - and what can just be left for now. Cleaning out the cabinets of food, throwing away the old medication, appraising everything at a glance.
You can distance yourself to a certain extent, (I don't remember my grandfather, he died when I was 3) so it makes going through half of the stuff easier.
And the great suck of it is, my grandmother isn't dead yet.
But she will never come out of the nursing home.
And because she thought that she just would roll over and not wake up one day, nothing was ever done legally properly, so they can sieze her entire "estate" to pay for her nursing home care. Or so we've been told.
Yes, it's morbid, but I urge anyone to settle up things. Make sure it's legal. Get a laywer and put down in writing extactly what you want done. Find out what kind of trusts you need so homes can't be siezed.
Because the likelyhood of you just not waking up is low, and the cost of care is astronomical.
And eventaully, after the 5th stack of nature slides, you start thinking to yourself, it's only a matter of time until I have to do the same thing with my parents...
- k.
All this used to mean something to someone. All this stuff is the fiber of someone's life - stuff they lived with and worked for and played with, and here we are, rummaging through it like carrion crows, deciding what is useful to us - what is valuable and should be squirrled away - and what can just be left for now. Cleaning out the cabinets of food, throwing away the old medication, appraising everything at a glance.
You can distance yourself to a certain extent, (I don't remember my grandfather, he died when I was 3) so it makes going through half of the stuff easier.
And the great suck of it is, my grandmother isn't dead yet.
But she will never come out of the nursing home.
And because she thought that she just would roll over and not wake up one day, nothing was ever done legally properly, so they can sieze her entire "estate" to pay for her nursing home care. Or so we've been told.
Yes, it's morbid, but I urge anyone to settle up things. Make sure it's legal. Get a laywer and put down in writing extactly what you want done. Find out what kind of trusts you need so homes can't be siezed.
Because the likelyhood of you just not waking up is low, and the cost of care is astronomical.
And eventaully, after the 5th stack of nature slides, you start thinking to yourself, it's only a matter of time until I have to do the same thing with my parents...
- k.
