IN MY SHOES: His Money or His Life?
The “dark drama surrounding Brooke Astor," which may or may not be a case of elder abuse, got writer Bob Morris thinking about the guilt-inducing dichotomy of wanting to give an aging parent the best care possible – but without completely depleting one’s inheritance, or even one’s own savings:
When caring for an aging parent, irreproachable selflessness doesn’t always come easily.
My own father died recently, and much as I hate to admit it, there were plenty of moments during the last year when I was consumed with an invisible ledger in my brain: my inheritance versus his health costs. Fifteen hundred dollars a week on this. Six thousand a month on that. It could all add up to leaving nothing.
Not that I tried to staunch the flow. But even thinking about it was an ugly thing.
And according to lawyers and health care workers who care for the elderly, such dilemmas are becoming more and more common. The final years of life are often weighted with escalating health costs that can either drain an inheritance from adult children (most with far fewer assets than an
[M]emories of my selfishness toward my father still haunt me.
For his 83rd birthday present, he had requested a pair of backless shoes that would make his life a little easier. We had flown down to
Now that he’s gone, I wonder why I did that. Maybe I was angry at having to be away from my busy life in
If I had to do it again, I would buy my father those shoes then and there. As it turned out, I bought a similar pair for him when we got back to
“Perfect,” he said.
Well, not quite.
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