sistawendy | The rest of my extended family is not having fun. (Reply)

Good Sister texted me last night wanting to give me an update. Having her reach out to me happens once in a purple moon, so I figured it was pretty important. Thanks to time zones, I didn't get to talk to her until this morning. It wasn't so much that any one thing GS is dealing with is particularly noteworthy; it's just the sheer number of them. Here are just the ones that, for the time being, we were hoping our newly infected lawyer A could help us with:

One week before Mom got placed under guardianship - the first time, with the court-appointed guardian - Mom converted her long-term care insurance policy to one with a $60K lifetime cap, which is chump change for someone who needs "memory care". In other words, the LTCI company preyed upon her dementia, and since it took Good Sister so long to take over and find out about everything, the LTCI is using that as an excuse not to undo what they did. GS says that's the highest priority, which I think is right given the speed at which Mom's dementia is advancing.
Mom's house, of course. GS is trying to negotiate a better deal than the one we got offered.
Mom's erstwhile friend K has apparently made off with more of Mom's money than we thought. That's disappointing; I liked K and was grateful that she spent time with Mom.

But what the United Sister Front is dealing with pales in comparison to what the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of my late maternal uncle B are dealing with. As relayed by Evil Sister from cousin M:

My onetime favorite aunt fell.
M's sister J will never be off oxygen.
J is so incapacitated that her slacker ex had to take their classically autistic son.
M's wife D is principal at a Catholic elementary school. They're doing the in-person thing and thereby risking the 'rona. (When last I heard, they were living in Virginia near the Tennessee state line, as most of Mom's family has for generations. I'm sure the place is Trumpy as all git out.)
D's mom has dementia too, bad enough that when her dad died, her mom just left him on the couch and "went about her business". GS observes that at least our mother isn't that bad yet.

You know, I haven't seen J or M or any of my maternal aunts in three decades, maybe closer to four. Yeah, I have a life on the other side of the country, but even before I got one, we didn't see much of them. Mom had some kind of spat with her eldest sister S, and since Mom is a champion grudge holder, we stopped going up there to see the Virginia relatives. I think that's tragic for us kids as well as for Mom. S died the year the Wendling was born.

Good Sister has lived in the DC area for quite a while now. Someday I'd like to visit her there because a) GS and b) DC! I wonder if she'd consider a road trip to the Blue Ridge.

Mom's vicissitudes aside, though, the United Sister Front and their kids are in pretty good shape. I hope things stay that way, especially with niece E in college and stepping and fetching for Mom.