My Grandfather was a very active, eccentric man. He was a millionaire who lived like a pauper, which is why he was a millionaire. He had a fourth grade education, so it didn't have anything to do with any high profile career. He was the groundskeeper for the Catholic Church in the small town he lived in until he was 86. This doesn't seem like much until you see the grounds, they covered a full city block. He did everything, including climbing up into the trees to prune them, climbing up on the roof, and ladders into the arches to change lightbulbs. He gave many a church lady a scare with his antics.
He was known around town for riding his bike everywhere he went. At 86 he was struck by a car and this was the begining of his decline. A few months later he broke a hip, and a year or so after that he broke the second. On his second hip break he was in a rehabilitation center in the town that I lived in. My mother commuted here to work 4 days a week, so (she was his legal power of attorney) and would visit him on those days, but asked me to visit him on the others. I would go once a week to see him, but it was very distressing to me. He had decided to move in with my mother once he was out of rehab, and let her husband (who is an unemployed alcoholic) and her take care of him. He didn't want to, but it's what she wanted to do for him, so he decided to give her a chance. I would come to see him, and could tell that things were not going well even at the rehab. He wasn't able to eat the food they were preparing for him and my mom wasn't doing anything about it. I did what I could, and he would tell me "your the one, you have to be the one". He knew that my mother was incapable of giving him the care that he needed, but my hands were tied. I didn't know what to do. The last few weeks he was there, I did not go see him. In retrospect, I think that all things happen for a reason, and I needed that time to rest up for what was ahead.
The insurance on the rehab ran out, and my mother took him to her home. There was a lot of fighting between the three of them going on, and things weren't going well. On the fifth day (6/1/05) of him being there the three of them got into quite a fight, and my mother told her husband (who was drunk at the time) to take her father back to the rehab he was at. (This is about a 45 minute drive). Of course the rehab would not take him without a doctors order, so he drove my grandfather to the hospital. While I don't know that the hospital staff saw it, this man (about 6'4, 250 to 300 lbs) kicked my 88 year old 120 lb grandfathers wheelchair hard enough to send him spinning and almost knock over through the hospital doors. I know this because he and my grandfather both said the same thing, and he actually bragged about it to one of my grandfather's neighbors. Once inside the hospital, nurses witnessed him verbally abusing my grandfather, and throw a bag at him that contained his glasses, wallet, and pills. He told the nurses that they were no longer able to care for my grandfather, grabbed the bag and left, per the nurses and my grandfather. Shaken up and scared by the experience, he told the nurses he did not want to go back there. He has one other daughter, who he had not spoken to in 7 years. He had the presence of mind to give the nurse her name, and the city she lived in. Luckily she was listed in the phone book, and they were able to locate her on 6/2/05.
On 6/3/05 after being unable to get a hold of my mother (she had disconnected her phone) she contacted me and let me know that she was looking for assisted living for my grandfather up there, if anyone didn't have a better suggestion. I let her know that I would do anything that needed to be done while he was down here. I took the rest of the day off work, went down to the hospital, and found out the information about the incident that I stated above. My grandfather asked me to take care of his finances for him, it just hadn't worked out with my mom, and so I agreed to do so. I needed his check book and paperwork, and went to go see my mother that night. I wont go into detail about how it all went, but she basically gave me his check book, some mail, and said that her husband gave my grandfathers bag of belongings to the nurse, so she must have stolen it. This was the last time I spoke with her.
Upon arriving at the hospital, my grandfather was very anemic. They had given him some blood, and were running tests to get him approved for placement into assisted living. At that time they found a spot on his colon which turned out to be a cancerous tumor. While he would not go through any kind of extensive cancer treatment at his age, it was important that it be operated on, to stop the bleeding that was causing the anemia. Now, I had the job ahead of me of getting power of attorney for his medical and finances, and a new will written (no changes other than me being the executor) all without him having any id, and no way to get him to the dmv to get one.
I contacted an attorney, and got my father (who is divorced from my mother) to come down and ID him along with my husband. We got everything switched over before he went into surgery. He went through surgery with flying colors, and told me that he wanted to walk again (he hadn't walked except a few steps with a walker since his second hip break). I focused on getting him rehabilitation, and getting all of his assets into a trust for him over the next few weeks. He moved on to rehab, but ended up with pneumonia one Saturday morning, and was back in the hospital. I had just found out that he had set up all of his accounts to Transfer on Death to my mother, to make it easier for her to distribute his estate. That morning was crazy for me. My Aunt and brother had been coming down a day here and there to give me a break from going to the hospital several times a day during the week while I tried to work (they live about 3 hours away). I had told my aunt to take the weekend off, since he was in the rehab, and come down during the week when I had to be at work would help me more. (FMLA does not cover Grandparents, so I had to work full time while trying to take care of him as well as the financial aspect). On the way to the hospital, I was on the phone with the estate planner, and he told me go see your granddad, but you have to get to the bank today to get docs signed to remove those TOD's from the accounts in case something happens. It was one of the hardest things that I had to do, but I went to the emergency room, went in to see him, had the doctors tell me that he may pass on. He was alert enough to know I was there, and mustered a laugh when I said something about him missing the nurses here, but he couldn't really talk. I told him I had to go, that I had more paperwork to do, but I would be back, and my dad and his daughter were on their way to see him too. He nodded his head, and I left. It was heartbreaking, but we both knew that this had to be done.
Amazingly, by the next day he was majorly improved, and within a few more days he was back at the rehab again. I continued my schedule of working, visiting, and getting his finances in order. By the end of that week, it seemed like things were going fairly well. On June 26th, a Sunday, my brother had come down and visited him, and called me just a bit before I was about to go make a visit myself. He said that grandpa had thrown up, and that he was sleeping. I called the nurses station several times that evening to check on him, but he was sleeping soundly, and had eaten a little bit at dinner time without throwing up, so I decided to stay home. It was the only day since I had first gotten to the hospital that I didn't see him. The next morning, I went to check on him before I was off to work. He was looking pretty good, eating his breakfast, but told me that things weren't going the way that he thought that they would. I reminded him that I had scheduled him to have a massage that afternoon, and that I would come by at lunch, and introduce him to the therapist. At lunch I went back, and he smiled and said he had been waiting for this all day. I told him to be good (he was still randy at 88
) and that I would be back at 6. The therapist called me after the massage and said that all went well, but that he seemed frail, and she wasn't sure that he would ever be able to walk again. After work I went back to the rehab, and walked into his room. They had him sitting up in bed, with his food in front of him, but he was slumped over to the right. He was having labored breath (not sure if you have heard a death rattle before, but if you have, you know what I heard) and had some vomit coming out of the side of his mouth. With his usual sense of humor he looked up at me and said "you got here just in time".
I went to the nurses station, and let them know what was going on. They called an ambulance, suctioned out the vomit, and put him on some oxygen. The ambulance took him back to the hospital and I followed. I couldn't get back right away, I guess they had to get him into the system or whatever, but I kept pestering them until they let me back. They asked me if he was DNR, again let me know that he may be dying, and started a breathing treatment, which they said was all that they would do. I held his hand, and told him how brave he was being. I told him that all we could do, is the best that we could, and we would leave the rest up to God. It was a much different speech than I had given him the last time, and he nodded to me. I pulled up a chair, sat next to him, and held his hand until he passed.
I know this sounds like a very sad story, but so many wonderful things did come out of it. He was able to see his estranged daughter and tell her how much he loved her, he was able to see my father and my brother, who he hadn't seen in quite some time. He learned that he had actually become a millionaire (he was just over 900,00 last time he had checked). He was surrounded by people that loved and respected him.
Since my mother didn't have a phone, during all of this my brother would go to her house occasionally and let her know what was going on. She had refused to come and see my grandfather unless he allowed her husband to come. He had already told me that he was afraid of the man, so in his state, I didn't feel that was a choice he should have to make. After all, the whole prior 2 months he had been in rehab, the man hadn't visited him once. The day after my grandfather died, my brother drove up to let my mom know, and on that day her husband gave my brother the wallet he had claimed to have given to the nurse. How my mother has justified that in her head, I will never know. To me there was no reason for him to produce it at that point, other than to prove where his motivation was.
The funeral of course was held at the Church he was the grounds keeper of. Four priests showed up to do the services. It was quite a testiment to what the church meant to him, and what he meant to the church.
I am currently working on getting his estate settled, and unfortunately that paperwork that I rushed away from the emergency room to get, sat on someones desk for 2 weeks, instead of going to the accounts that it should have, so I am dealing with attorneys etc and trying to get it all straightened out. Once that is over, I will quit smoking, I promise
