Movin' Out

Ah, caring for aging and failing parents, a chapter missing from the adult manual they gave to all of us in college. My friends and I used to spend hours in wonderful BS sessions -- talking about the world, and learning, and careers, and the women we might someday marry.  But in our early 20s, the thought of caring for the ELDERS never entered into the discussions.

Well, my beloved Dad took himself out of the analysis, dropping dead at 63 before there was anything to do about caring for him as a truly elderly man.  My Mom stayed mostly independent until she was 89, and then limped along for three more  years, steadfastly refusing to leave her condo, spending hours cleaning up her own "accidents," and keeping her sunny demeanor until the end.  Finally, after a fall landed her in Delray Hospital, my dear friend and brother Eric said she was starving -- her albumin levels were consistent with someone not eating enough.  So it was "no more monkeys jumping on the bed," and I moved her to Miami Jewish, where she had a pleasant and foggy final 11 months, and actually had a profound effect on my friend Mirta -- sharing her wonderful outlook with someone who tended to the Eyeore...

Next came Richard, my father in law, also fine and independent until Alzheimer's crept in and we took away his car keys.  He and my mother in law limped along, too, until his urine incontinence and sheer size called out for a life change: Wifey convinced him to go to Miami Jewish, too, based on not being a burden to his beloved wife.  Big, strapping Richard got three and a half more years, content to watch TV in his accidentally private room, and have twice weekly visits from his wife and us.  The final months were sad, of course, as he was in and out of Mt. Sinai, but he'd amazingly rally like a dolphin surfacing for more air, until the end came in January, 2016.

Once he died, my mother in law's DREAM -- a condo she manipulated us into buying her "on the vater" where she never looked out at the "vater" had become a too sad place for her.  She would never go to a "home" where "de animals" would be in charge of her care (meaning the Caribbean staff at Miami Jewish), and so Wifey and I booted out our regular rent paying tenant Lenny, and renovated a condo we own in Palmetto Bay.

Wifey made it a showplace for her mother, and her mother appreciated it hardly at all.  Wifey is an only child, and my suegra simply ASSUMES Wifey will provide and care for her.  Wifey found an awesome aide, Gloria, who came to love the old crow.  And the old crow complained and complained about every dollar paid to Gloria -- "Vy she gets paid to just sit and vatch TV?"

The familiar pattern of falls began -- and there was a final one where Rachel laid in the bathroom like a turtle on its back for hours until discovered the next am by Gloria.  This freaked her out --"VORSE than de camps" according to this Holocaust Survivor, and we knew it was time for my mother in law to go to Assisted Living.

So she went from Baptist Hospital where she got IV antibiotics for a leg infection, now cleared, to the Palace Rehab, in West Kendall, and sometime this week will be moved to a shared room in the Palace ALF.  It's funny -- my Mom had visited the Palace years ago, with her friend Rose, and pronounced it "too fancy and swanky" for her.  So now my mother in law, less, oh, Audrey Hepburn-like than my Mom, by a factor of 100, gets to move there.

Last night Wifey and I visited her.  She's "bored."  She's also, all of a sudden, losing her short term memory -- she re told an anecdote about the Polish word for "palace" three times.  The move won't go smoothly.  Rachel is deaf, and used to Wifey and me and her private aid taking the time to type out everything we need to tell her.  I don't think a fellow cranky roommate or staff at the ALF is going to do that, and my mother in law will go into full victim mode again.

I predict she's going to be more miserable old with people she feels don't like her than she was miserable alone with an aide who really DID like her -- but so it shall be.

Meanwhile, Wifey and I stopped by the condo last night and started to pack her stuff.  I meet tomorrow with Joyce, our long time realtor.  Back in '92, my in laws had listed their Kendale South house with Joyce, and along came Hurricane Andrew.  We decided to buy the house, and I asked Joyce if she'd let them out of the contract.  She agreed right away and cheerfully.

Joyce is probably now near 70, originally from Kentucky, and one of these awesome Jew-philic Evangelical Christians -- more Zionist than many of my liberal Jewish friends.  She's been to Israel many times, and is a big admirer of our friends the Chabad family -- Joyce found them for us as tenants back in '96.

Joyce got the listings to sell two of our houses, and found me all of our tenants.  By foregoing what would have been a $5000 commission, tops, in '92, she's earned over $50K in commissions from us over the years.  It's a great lesson in doing the right thing for a client and having it come back to you  many times over.

Anyway -- we'll list the unit with Joyce, and hope to get maybe $150K for it.  I paid $235K in '06.  But my CPA friend Mark made me feel better -- I was able to depreciate the unit while it was a rental property, so for tax purposes  -- so its "cost basis" is now down to $158K, or so.  So the loss isn't as stark.

And, it DID buy us nearly a full year of peace with my mother in law -- a stepping stone to what will hopefully be her final home while still among the living.

Yes, caring for these three 90 somethings wasn't in the manual.  But it IS in the bigger manual -- the Ten Commandments, as my brother Paul points out.  The one about "Honor Thy Parents" is even a Top 5 Commandment!  So we've done it, and will do it, for, like the WW II draft notices read, "the duration."