Life is getting stranger every day now.
Just talking here.
Today was a very strange day. A couple of days ago my mother had called her attorney to change the will, leaving me everything. That sounds good, but there was a couple of problems. She was making the change out of emotion. She was mad at my brothers for not paying enough attention to her. She is also not competent to be writing a new will. I told her the old will was fine and didn't need to be rewritten. The lawyer told her that she really didn't need a new will, that she could leave me her money just by putting my name on her account with a POD.
Today the lawyer called. He had done the new will. My mother told me I was going to have to sign it. Of course, I don't sign her will and I didn't want anything to do with it, anyway. I didn't want her last word to my brothers to be an angry one. And we're going into the Christmas season. How would it feel to have done something so ugly as cut them out of the will, then say merry Christmas.
Well, anyway, the lawyer put aside the new will. Later my mother called each of my brothers and was chatting away lovingly with them. And I thought that it was why I didn't want her to change her will. I don't think she realized what a hostile act it was to cut them out.
As the evening wore on, she kept punching buttons on her phone and calling people. She did something to the phone and it was calling people automatically when you picked it up. I tried to rehab the phone, sitting on the floor with the TV blaring gospel music in one ear and her telling me all the things I needed to do in the other. She kept telling me to call my brother. Why?? Well, I got it straightened out and she decided to call my brother four times just to make sure it was all working. There was a lot more going on, but I slipped back to my room into the world of the sane. I thought about how staying with a person with dementia can be like a game of whack-a-mole, whacking each problem as they come up one right after another.
She might have been able to sign the will, since she hasn't been declared legally incompetent. But I would always know that she was not competent to do it. My brothers would probably also know that.
I thought last night about the different strange things during the day. It is like something crazy is always going on. Some people complain about their parent sleeping too much. They are lucky!
My brother in TX called this afternoon and I was glad that we'd shelved that will idea. There are no hidden secrets. I doubt that he'll take any of the money if there is any left, since they have a good bit. But it was good to know it will be his decision and not an angry statement from her while I stood by and let it happen. We'll just forget that this will thing ever happened. It wouldn't have if she still had her old mind.
My mother has been talking a lot about dying lately. She keeps saying that she might "die tonight" so I better be ready. She doesn't seem near death, though. She still has good weight, good vitals, and a very healthy appetite. If she still had a good back and mind, she might feel very different about her prospect. We never can tell, but sometimes I think she may live 5 more years. Heaven be with us.
I believe they go through phases in what they say, dying may be one of them, my grandmother did that.
A minute later she is reminding me that she has spent all of her money and there is nothing left to leave. OK, Mom, then why are we even talking about it?
Sometimes even when it looks like a change would be in our favor, it really isn't. There is potential for bad family feelings, and the changes come with strings attached. What if I needed to put my mother in a NH soon because I couldn't take care of her at home anymore? I know the first thing she would say would be that I owe her because she left everything to me, and that she was going to call the lawyer to have me thrown out of the will. I don't think she has grasped yet that her sons and daughter are "whatever" about the things in her will.
I had a dream last night that I'd been diagnosed with liver cancer and got a failing grade on an exam because I didn't put my name on my paper. I think the message of the dream was clear that I need to take better care of me and my own needs before the dream comes true. Being run down with all the stress from drama certainly does open the door to disease.