My father passed away on February 10th. My stepmom is doing okay, but of course, she has moments of sadness and grief.
Sometime this year my brother and I are going back to help her clean out the house, and hopefully get her finances and everything set up.
I've recommended that she see an attorney about possibly setting up a living trust, and she definitely needs a new power of attorney! I have a spare key to their house, and I know where everything is (she showed me the financials, etc. when I was there in November).
I'm actually glad that my dad didn't linger too long and that a nursing home was unnecessary, because now my stepmom should be okay financially and will be able to pay as necessary to take care of herself. I'm still going to keep asking her to move out here, or at least sell the house and move into a retirement community so she won't be so isolated and alone (what if
she falls?!), but not yet. Her grief is still too new for me to pressure her.
I'm going to insist that she get Life Alert or something similar, though. She's 72, and still doing pretty well, but my dad's first fall was at age 72, so you just never know. When I brought this up to her in November, her response was: "I'm not there yet." We never think we're there until something happens! I don't want her lying there unable to move for three or four days. Who would even notice that she hasn't been out to get the mail, etc.?
I'm a little sad that my dad couldn't recover, but the two falls (one in October and the other on New Year's Eve) so close together simply did him in.
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