Dealing with Aging Family

Before I start this story, please be aware of a couple things - 1) I don't expect to get advice here, in fact, I'd rather not get any, and 2) Just typing this out is pretty good therapy for me.

My father died when I was 16 in 1988 at the age of 40, he was a great guy and a stoner of the finest degree. This isn't about him though. His father died before I was born, and his mother was left to deal with my Uncle, who was a problem child. My Uncle was an artist more or less, and has held other jobs, but never really had to work for his living, his mother took care of him financially. While my father was in the hospital with terminal cancer he asked his mother if she would loan my mother and I $5,000 to take care of the medical bills and funeral expenses, she initially agreed and then reneged the next day.

I do not wish to speak ill of the dead, however, my Grandmother was not a nice person, she was never warm, and IMHO should have never had children at all. Her life ended when her husband died, and that's really sad when you have two children to look after. She just never got over him. Her own sister disowned her because she always said "my sister treated me like shit, I'm 80 years old I shouldn't have to put up with that."

After my father died my Uncle was a good friend to me, and helped me out a bit. I did idolize him for a time and patterned some of myself after him. He is the reason I've been a vegetarian for 20 years. In 1998 I left San Diego where I'd been living for since 1980 because the economy sucked and I couldn't find a job, I moved in with my Grandmother and my Uncle, though initially he wasn't going to move back home. I stayed about six months, and our relationship deteriorated from day one. I was removed from my Grandmother's will because I wasn't fiscally responsible according to them.

My grandmother died in 1998, leaving her entire estate to my Uncle, which was a house and securities, all told about $500,000 or so. By 2000 my Uncle and I were barely speaking and on the weekend that I met the woman who would become my wife, he cut me out of his life completely, telling me that I was no longer family to him because I couldn't live up to his expectations. He left for an extended trip of Europe on the Concorde and I didn't hear about him for several years.

In 2006 when I became a father myself I found out where he was and contacted him to let him know and reopened lines of communication. By the time that we were ready for a face-to-face meeting, something had changed in him, he had lost a serious amount of his memory and personality. Over the last two years I've helped him move and get his Medical Marijuana recommendation for his chronic cluster headaches and other pain. I've visited him quite often and kept the lines of communication open between him and his friends who have all abandoned him because of his behavior. I have gone above and beyond to assist him because he is family, and he has no one else to rely upon.

As I sit here typing this tonight, he's lying in a hospital bed in Downtown LA waiting to get placed into an assisted living facility because he can no longer care for himself, and he's no longer lucid. He's had a brain hemmohrage and a stroke in the last week. I had last seen him about a month ago, and while I noticed that he wasn't doing particularly well, I did feel at the time that he could still care for himself. Two weeks ago he supposedly withdrew the last of his savings, about $25,000 and went to Disneyland, which was the only thing that he enjoyed doing over the last several years. Somehow he lost all of that money. Not spent, not gambled...LOST.

I am his closest blood relative, though his Aunt is still alive, she wants nothing to do with him either (and frankly, I don't blame her, she's also in her 80's and barely able to care for herself). I believe that he may have a will, but I doubt he has a living trust. I've been through his apartment, but all I found so far was about an OUNCE of MMJ, which I confiscated. He's going to be placed in a facility where they won't allow him to have MMJ, so better I take it than let it go to waste. I have to go back Sunday to see if I can find any paperwork.

I'm not going to take in my Uncle...I can barely tolerate his presence for more than 5 minutes. Apparantly he is refusing to eat or cooperate with the hospital staff, but they assure me that they will not discharge him wihtout being placed in another facility. I'm also not going to take financial responsibility for him, because frankly I don't have the money to care for him either. I'm the full-time parent for my 2 1/2 year old daughter, so when I had to go to the Hospital on Thursday, I had to take her with me, and she was scared to death of him. When she cried because she's scared (which she virtually NEVER does) he had the nerve to say that she was "unpleasant" to which I told him that it was unpleasant for us to even be there.

I don't WANT the responsibility of making decisions for him, and I shouldn't have to either. He had the money and the resources years ago to plan for his future, and he did nothing, except sell the house and buy a few stocks. Lately he'd been bragging how much money he had in the bank, and how much stock he had and how much it was going to be worth, at the same time he was claiming the Publisher's Clearing House was going to pay him 2.5 Million because he won a contest (that of course he never entered). He's lost thousands recently by being scammed by those monthly "services" that never amount to anything. He claimed he wanted to help me and my family, and I told him that we could use some money, but nother ever came our way. He was handing it out left and right, but not to me.

So the morale of the story kids is to make some plans for when you get old. Start a 401K or at least a savings account and set up a living trust so that if you're incapacitated you can still have your wishes fufilled.

This obviously isn't the full story, there is much, much more that I neither have the time nor inclination to delve into, it's all family bullshit. Just thanks for reading if you do...and remember to plan for your future, because you just never know.

My Uncle is just 57 years old, and he looks like he's 80. His entire life hasn't amounted to a damn thing, and that's just really sad.

 

I've been as nice as I possibly can be with him. There is so much anger pent up that cannot possibly be vented anymore. Part of him died a long time ago, and I guess the rest of his body is starting to catch up.

As I said I haven't told the entire story, I left out the incident where he called me up in a complete panic needing a ride because the government was coming to get him right then, and proceeded to rant and rave throughout the entire trip, scaring the shit out of me and my daughter.

 

yeah, but he's still family, so there is still some lingering feelings of responsibility on my part.

thus the terrible anguish that I have been going through. My wife feels it too, because she was brought up Mormon and in the church you do everything you can to aid family in times of need.

So needless to say, it's been a tough week.


Oh and the MMJ was mostly pretty crappy strains, some OG Kush, but not really 'good' OG Kush. In any case, it will keep me going for a little while at least.


It's also a terrible thing to die alone without anyone, i wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy...and yet I'm supposed to do it for my blood? He's my blood after all. There's still love in my heart for the man he used to be.

 

OK you, you are scaring me. Please stop posting on my thread, you aren't helping, you're worrying me, and face it, I don't have time or energy to worry about some emo teenager on GC who's clearly a danger to himself. Get some help buddy.

Maybe you haven't assimilated the entire situation, this is a man I've known my entire life, and he's my closest living relative on my Father's side of the family. When he is gone, and when my Great-Aunt is gone (she's in her 80's remember) there will be NO ONE from my Father's family left.

So as much as I would love to agree with you and just let him go, I can't. He's still my kin and blood, and regardless of the anger I feel towards him for his past behavior (and present, let's face it), at this point he cannot control his life, or his actions. Maybe you've never had to deal with the elderly, and see people that you've known to be vital, stable individuals turn into quivering piles of jelly who can no longer even wipe their own arse, but I have, and it's not pretty.

He is my Father's brother, and for better or worse, he's the last link I have to my Dad, and that's very important to me. I'm nearing 40, and have just started my own family, so this all weighs on me quite a bit.

Please no more callous replies such as that.

Thank you.

 

Well, here's an update:

He's still in the hospital, but we found his money, so I'm hoping that we'll be able to put him into an assisted living situation this week. He's awake and lucid, but nowhere near coherent. We went to see him yesterday and all he kept saying was that he had his cluster headaches. When we got there the nurses were trying to remove the catheter from his penis, which he wouldn't let them do because he claimed he didn't have one - he wouldn't even look down to verify that he did! He got very angry and almost violent with the two women, which was extremely upsetting. He recognizes me, but he's simply no longer able to care for himself.

It's all so disheartening. I'm not sure it would even be easier if we had been able to hash out our differences as coherent individuals.

Basically it all sucks.

 

The thing is, he's not in the frame of mind to even understand his own reality...so it's not like he even knows he needs help...

 

I don't know if "sick" is the right word - he's altered mentally, his brain has been damaged by the stroke and the cluster headaches. He's not mentally there anymore, he has no concept of reality whatsoever and cannot function as a normal human being.