I think I am well prepared with this.
People tell me there's a void without children and the void increases as you age. Personally, I don't feel the void - yet. Should I prepare for the void that is to come and what can I do now to help ourselves?
I think if you've made it this far then you're not going to have any upheavals.
People still commiserate with us over how miserable we must be as empty nesters. Meanwhile at our house the "Woo-hoos!" and the high-fives are still going on daily, 10 months after matriculation.
What do we childless people do when we are in our 80's or 90's (still 20 plus years away) and not competent to handle our affairs?
Either my brother or I will be the 'last one standing'. How do those of us with no relatives find someone we can trust to do the same? Do we find a lawyer or accountant and hope they are in business when we need them?
If things go according to plan money will not be a problem.
Has anyone else given this some thought?
Funny you should ask that.
In the 1980s, for over four years (before he entered a care facility), my grandfather stopped opening his mail. This included dividend checks, all bills, and all warning letters. (He just put all the mail in the spare bedroom and eventually filled the room.) The utility companies merely put him on the "delinquent" list and kept rolling over the balances... at 1.5%/month interest. The IRS and the state did the same when his taxes eventually went unpaid. For that entire period, 3x/day he ate the exact same meal at Friendly's and tipped extremely generously. His "good times" didn't end until he finally forgot to pay his rent, and that's when the landlord finally phoned my father. The 1980s diagnosis was dementia-- absolutely no short-term memory but lots of long-term memories.
A generation later my father went down the same road for at least 18 months. He's a retired engineer so he built an impressive system of calendars, reminders, and checklists to help keep himself oriented. He stopped using his computer in late 2009 but coped until he ended up in the hospital. From what I can reconstruct in his checking account and credit cards, he was keeping up until month #17 but then went into rapid decline. Alzheimer's-- no short-term memory and progressive loss of long-term memories.
If that's how well those two did without modern technology, then imagine how much further we could get in this century with automatic billpay, Meals on Wheels, grocery delivery, and other Internet services. Look at in-home independent-living systems like iHealthHome (
iHealthHome Program). You'd never have to leave the house until the ISP pulled the plug.
If you somehow survive the experience and eventually come to the attention of the authorities, yet have no family to step forward, then you'd get a court-appointed guardian. If no relatives are available, there are also volunteers and paid guardians. Guardianship & conservatorship require periodic reports to the judge but I'm not sure how far off the trail your guardian could get before someone noticed. It would probably be the care facility raising a flag. Googling "guardianship" for your state should give you links to more details for your jurisdiction.
Care facilities also have "trust accounts" for their residents. For example, my father's care facility uses those for residents wanting haircuts. I top up the account balance every month. If someone needed new clothes or shoes then eventually the staff would take care of it and charge it to the trust account for the guardian to handle.
You could start with a power of attorney, which is easily revoked if you change your mind. If you foresaw your decline then you could set up a trust/trustee or select a guardian. I suspect that professional guardians will become a big business within the next 10-20 years.
This is really an important topic, even for those with kids. What are the kids (or anybody else) supposed to do, once they notice you aren't thinking straight any more? Some of the anecdotes on this forum address this, but in the end, the parents always seem to settle down in an ALF. But what if you turn balky, and refuse to give up independence and move to an ALF? What if you turn so ornery, even the ALF wants you to leave?
Hopefully none of us will have that happen, but what if it does? Is there a "second line of defense"?
Amethyst
Yes, you saw a version of this in Nords saga of his dad's decline. I'm also witnessing it in the parent of an friend.
The second line of defense is the simple fact that ornery, resistant and fiercely independent people, like the rest of us, will someday reach a point where they can resist no more. Eventually failing health will result in hospitalization (assuming they are discovered before expiring) and from there to a care facility of some sort.
This is never pretty but it is often the only path available to those who resist a more peaceful journey to the end game.
Dad was Exhibit A for this issue. I've talked with several geriatric care managers about it, and essentially there's nothing that can be done except for "intrusive assistance" or just pissing them off and then waiting them out. Dad insisted that he didn't want to be a medical "lab rat", so Aricept or other cognitive enhancers were out of the question. If he got disoriented he had a card in his wallet with his name & address, along with our contact info, to give to a police officer and ask for help. When he went hiking in the Rockies, he hiked uphill first so that if he got disoriented he would have an easier time getting back to the car. (He wouldn't even discuss GPS-equipped shoes. He had his own GPS, didn't he?) Sometimes elders get tired of being responsible for the care of the place, swallow a little pride, and ask for help. Other times they get into extremis.
Dad's ulcer finally broke through at 11 PM, and apparently that's extremely painful. He was actually going to his SUV to drive himself the few miles to the emergency room when a neighbor gave him a ride. (Even if Dad was fully cognitive, it would never have occurred to him to call an ambulance.) If that neighbor hadn't been returning home as Dad was leaving then Dad would probably have wrecked his SUV enroute and completed the trip in a police car or ambulance.
So I guess the "second line of defense" is the police & EMTs, along with emergency-room doctors. Dad had less than an hour to live when they finally found the problem and started cutting.
The doctor knew exactly how to handle the rest of the situation. Dad was "ready" to go home after his ulcer surgery as soon as the painkillers wore off. The doctor avoided that battle by insisting that he go to a skilled nursing facility until the incision had completely healed and he'd finished his physical therapy. The doctor was the only authority figure my Dad would pay attention to. When we got to the parking lot of the SNF I even had to leave his SUV there (and give Dad the keys) so that he could leave "as soon as he finished therapy".
Once Dad was in the SNF he realized how nice it was to not have to deal with bills, cooking, laundry, and other chores. The transition took about 72 hours.
Our "Plan B" for Dad was 24/7 caregivers in his apartment. Unfortunately if the resident is a male, then the night-time caregiver is usually a male (who gets paid extra to be available on the midwatch) or two females (to avoid assaults). Instead of the care facility's ~$7K/month, Dad would have been paying $12K-$14K/month.
My brother (unmarried & childless) has been seriously weirded out by projecting his own future onto our father & grandfather's situations. When his time comes, we have no idea if I'll be in any position to help.
I'm glad that spouse hasn't seen my father in over a decade. If she'd seen him and me together during his hospital stay she would've needed psychiatric help. Not an issue in her family-- her grandparents all lived to triple digits and her parents are still hale, hearty, & unmedicated in their mid-70s. As you can imagine, our recent experiences have re-invigorated our workouts and our healthy eating.
In our house, the deal has always been that spouse would take over our bill-paying & investments & taxes when she turns 60 (when her pension starts). I had my turn for the first 40 years and she might as well enjoy the next 40. (It's all in autopilot anyway.) We're also subject to "pop-quiz" mini-mental tests on each other, but after that our philosophies diverge a little. She personally wants to euthanize herself when she can no longer take care of herself, while I'm not sure that I'm ever going to stop being curious about what tomorrow brings. Especially if I can't remember it...
But I have thought about this topic as of late due to my Mother's nursing home experience. I'm there for her, to help her anyway I can. But if I live long enough to have a need to go in a nursing home, will I be like many there and have no one to visit me? I doubt my nephews and niece will let that happen, but you do wonder. I don't expect them to be there as much as I am for my Mom btw. But I hope I get a few visits, unlike the many that don't in nursing homes. Hopefully I will pass in my sleep before nursing homes enter the picture. Don't we all........
