Living With Dad, 7

Its the finances that are going to be the death of me.  Not costs, I mean the checks and bank statements, trash documents, etc.  Every single little document is a source of frustration.  We spent 1.5 hours deciding what to do with 1 received check, 2 change of address confirmations, a homeowner association board meeting notice, and a monthly investment statement.  It was maybe 10 minutes work for me if I got those myself.  But with the detailed explanations required for Dad, the repeat of the explanations a few minutes later, the backtracking after that, the filling out of a simple form and addressing of a simple envelope, and "the keeping of the documents", we used up 1.5 hours.

Dad is completely confused about his several banks with multiple accounts.  He considers each separate account "a bank" in conversation, which gets really confusing.  Fortunately, I have managed to eliminate one actual bank.  Every simplification helps.  A constant concern of his is bank failure and loss of his money (he is old enough to remember the bank failures of the Great Depression).  I explain that assets are federally insured, but Fox News reports and gold-seller advertisements all over TV have him worried.  I would like to get his checking and standard savings accounts into a local bank, a money market account into another, and some money into CDs at a credit union (for the higher interest).  Yeah, that's 3 banks, but they would be separated by type of accounts and I can keep THAT straight.  Plus new accounts get me a clean start so that I can start balancing his checkbook and entering his earned interest monthly.  Right now, he just trusts the monthly bank statements to be accurate.

And I'm still trying to get his older records sorted out (mostly looking for 2011 tax information).  So after the new mail was taken care of, we spent another hour+ as we went through the remaining ones in his duffel bag (his version of a file cabinet drawer).

Dad keeps stuff in old envelopes chronologically.  Worse, its chronologically by date of receipt, not the month it actually applies to.  So an amendment to his 2008 taxes is with Oct 2011 stuff because thats when it was processed.  And the Oct 2011 envelope has his property tax voucher in with bank statements, PR junk from a bank, and donations for the month, etc.  ARGHHH!

He can't understand why I want to sort documents by company and subject...  I'd understand if he could find any documents with his system, but he can't.  And I have to be able to find his documents.

His wallet is another scrambled mess.  There aren't many cards in it, but they are all just stacked together.  HE can't find anything in it when he needs to, and objects if I try to find anything.  For example, finding his Social Security card or credit card takes forever.  Not because he has so many cards in the wallet, but because he keeps them (deliberately) packed into just a couple plastic holders (all the others are broken on the sides).  I'd LIKE to get him a new wallet with new cardholders for each card, but he won't spend the money for one OR allow me to just buy one.  He wants his OLD wallet, broken as it is...

I'm hoping to get a chance to buy him a new wallet for Fathers Day and HOPE he will use it.  One nice plastic holder for each card he has in the old wallet.

I understand his concerns about keeping records the way he is accustomed to.  I really do; changes in personal organization are difficult.  But his way doesn't work for HIM either anymore and I'M the one who has to find records now.

I also know that I need to make changes slowly so that Dad can get used to them (in reality, "slowly" so that he has SOME illusion of control). 

I think the hardest part of all this is that I'm not dealing with a child.  I'm dealing with a person who knows he is an adult but COMPREHENDS like a child.  A child doesn't know or care about records and forms.  An adult does.  Dad KNOWS that these documents are important (and quite frankly, HIS).  While he knows that he can't understand them anymore, he can't stop trying.  THAT'S the Sisyphean hill we labor against every day...

Dad's fading mental abilities are the rock he is trying to push uphill.  But I'M the one doing most of the pushing and I have to keep running around him awkwardly to get a good grip on the rock.  When he asks the same set of questions about "settled" actions for the 3rd or 4th time, the rock slips downhill a bit and I have to get the rock uphill a bit further than it was when we started the day.

The rock will get bigger and heavier as time goes on and Dad has greater difficulties in understanding things.  I expect it, and I'll deal with it as best I can.  Because there will come a day when Dad no longer even tries to manage his affairs.  That will be a more difficult day.  Easier in the sense of "just handling his bills myself", but harder in that I will be watching my Dad fading from this world...

Mark