Linda sank down into an armchair and pulled off her hat. “I hate funerals and this one was really tough. I am really going to miss Aunt Millie.” Her sister, Mary, sighed. “I know. But I’m glad we could be there for her, her being all alone after Uncle Fred died.” “But now the hard work begins,” Linda said. “Aunt…
Angela stared into her coffee cup and shook her head. “I don’t know what to do, Fred. Mom’s nursing home is threatening to kick her out because her Medicare coverage has run out.” Fred frowned. “But she qualified for Medi-Cal. Did you tell them that?” Angela nodded. “Yes, I did. The nursing home administrator told me that they have a…
Mary read the trust document again. “This can’t be right,” she said, shaking her head. “Why would Grandpa change the terms of his trust and leave such a large amount of money to this religious group? I’ve never even heard of this organization. Our kids were supposed to benefit from his trust. He always made that clear. This makes no…
Ellen glared at her former daughter-in-law, Lola, and sputtered, “You want to do what?” “I want to use the sperm Robert stored before he died to conceive a child. I mean, he froze it after he was diagnosed with cancer so we could have children. We never anticipated that he would die. But it’s still sitting there, and I want…
Here is an increasingly common scenario we see in our practice. One family member usually a child, begins assisting, then taking care of and possibly even living with, an elderly parent as the parent’s abilities decline with age. The other children in the family eye the arrangement with suspicion: Is our sister just sponging off of mom or, worse yet,…
We know lots of people don’t like to think or talk about dying. We can see how our own clients often put off doing their estate planning until something happens that they see as a wake-up call: a friend dies suddenly without a will, leaving a mess for the family; or our client has to serve as their parents’ estate…
Julia was worried. “I’m telling you, Mom had a big bruise on her leg when I visited her yesterday at the nursing home,” she told her sister, June. “She says she doesn’t remember how it happened. When I asked a nurse, all she said was, ‘Oh, your mother is always falling. She doesn’t always use her walker.’ Mom doesn’t have…
