Quote:
Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby
On the other hand, if your sister actually lives within 10 minutes of your dad, and you're four hours away, and she knows all dad's doctors and the aides and the area and the facilities (for when the time comes) - and if she's willing to accept the responsibility, I say go for it.
Otherwise you could be tasked with handling estate matters from a distance, dealing with people you don't know anything about, having to hear things third-hand because you simply can't just show up to appointments on the fly, and you'd have to arrange at least a couple days in advance for any appointments you -can- schedule if they require you to be physically present.
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The Healthcare POA and General POA can be two different people and, in my experience plus other family stories I've heard, they should be. Agree that the appointed Healthcare person should live as close to the elderly person as possible. But, the General POA who will handle bills, taxes, manage money, any legal issues, etc...doesn't need to live nearby but, should have a good working relationship with the Healthcare POA.
However, see, in my situation, my oldest brother lived 1 hour away from Mom and the other three of us lived 7 to 10 hour drives but, he slacked-off and didn't put much effort into watching over her or the money. I knew some things were wrong, couldn't get oldest bro to communicate so, I emailed my thoughts and reasoning to the other two brothers to enlist their help. Guess what? They declined. Flabbergasting, yes! Their inclination was to circle the wagons around the brothers, leave me having to exert alone while our mother twisted in the wind.
If anyone thinks that kind of dysfunctional family dynamic is unusual - they would be very, very wrong. My view is that the handling of the elderly parent situation is more often screwed-up and fraught with stress and anger than it is not. But, the reason you don't know that is people don't talk about it because they're embarrassed at how badly their family handled matters. So then, lots of other families make the same mistakes and it damages relationships, sometimes forever. People need to talk about these things! That's why I'm offering this info.
Also, as an example of how things change and why these matters should be revisited every decade, at least. When our father was diagnosed, all of a sudden, with terminal brain cancer 30+ years ago, our family immediately coalesced, got on the same page and there was zero negativity amongst us in dealing with it. I think we were all a bit proud about how well we handled it and we all lived remotely from our parents and it was pre-internet.
But, 30+ years later, the wheels came off the family bus when our very aged mother got very ill .....although they'd been heavily trending that way for the prior 12+ years. So, it was inevitable, it seems.
If I have time, I'll add more later. Esp. about what happened to mothers situation - you all will want to know that.