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THE SETTLEMENT

Mother's first actions upon being released from the hospital was to finish the destruction she began. All of the protestations of love, all of the complaints of depression and loneliness, all the desire to die and be done, all of the pain her addiction caused, immediately forgotten in her desire to return to her addiction and her gambling.
In the hospital at Sioux City, mother instructed me to sell her house so she could move to the assisted living facility. Mother had the hospital call me at work to tell me she was on her death bed. I called my sister and asked her to come with me. She declined. My husband insisted I could not go through this alone as I do not deal well with death and so I asked if I could bring someone else with me. Mother agreed and instructed me to pay for their expenses. I brought my daughter-in-law, Wendy with me. We had less than 24 hours notice to get there, get a release from my job, arrange for Wendy's child care and deal with travel arrangements. I had been to Sioux City before, but not for over five years and mother had always done the driving. I knew no one in Sioux City and did not know my way around. The hotel room was arranged for us in advance and was where we had always stayed. While there, I spoke at length with my cousin, Charlotte, who was one of the other heirs to mother's estate, and asked her advise. I was told I was doing the right thing and to continue. I I called my sister and asked her what to do. She told me I was doing the right thing and to continue and no, she could not come to help. I spoke to mother's banker and mothers financial investment broker and asked their advice. The banker raised concern about mother's gambling problems. The financial advisor helped me to set up the Trust. I spoke to mother's attorney and asked him what to do. His advice, such as it was, was to do nothing.

We were supposed to be met at the airport and taken to mother's home to get her car. There was no time. Nobody met us at the airport. We were left with only one other choice and that was to rent a car until we could get to mother's house and pick her's up at which time, we had to return the rental car.   This entire adventure took place over the Memorial Day, one of the most expensive travel periods of the year. Hotels were booked up, gas was at an all time high and the car rental agencies and everyone were raising their prices for the annual feeding frenzy on the tourists. I had left in such a hurry that I needed to notify my employer as to how long I was going to be in Iowa. We had received an emergency rate from the airlines coming to Iowa, but they declined to give us the same returning as there was no longer an emergency and could not give us a round trip fee because we had no idea when we would be returning to California. The cost of our tickets, coming to Iowa were a special rate of $724 for the two of us. Our return tickets, which were not an emergency were that much for each of us. And that rate was subject to availability of the seating. Wendy had to go home first class because there were no other seats available on the airplane. It was that or walk home. Wendy suffered from severe altitude sickness. She could not help me make the drive home. This was explained to mother and I could not drive home alone. She instructed me to deliver Carol's things to her. I could not load them on the truck myself. In following her instructions to make delivery, I incurred expense. These were not my expenses. I did not ask for her things. She told me to take them, then berated me for spending the money to do so. She instructed me to sell her house, then complained when it was sold. I have no doubt at all that the minister, who tried to buy the house in good faith, and looked forward to having a place to live in his declining years, was treated with the same disrespect and driven out because I know mother would have treated him no differently than she treated everyone else who failed to give in to her demands.

This was handed to us when we came to visit mother on the morning of May 16th at the Sioux City Hospital. We did not know mother was doing this and were surprised when we received it. This occurred several times during the whole ordeal and each time, we sought additional advice from others and were told to proceed as she instructed. Any time she varied from her original instructions, we asked for and received additional instructions in writing where necessary. When the nursing home director told us that Iowa law required that we either leave a "death trust" to take care of mother's final remains in case of death or pre-arrange her funeral, morbid though the thought was, I drove to Storm Lake to make the arrangements as required. I stopped first at the bank because we were told the attorney wanted her land abstracts, then on to the funeral home, but on attempting to deliver the abstracts, discovered the attorney's office was closed. There was no time to go back to his office, so we planned to deliver the abstracts by messenger once we arrived home.
My profound apologies on behalf of this family to the minister, whom I am sure took the brunt of her change of heart in following through with the sale. He was a nice, pleasant man of God, he stood by her through the entire ordeal and was so pleased when she agreed to sell him the house and no doubt very much maligned when she decided to cancel. I am embarrassed for us that he was mistreated in this fashion.

When Wendy and I went to the hospital the morning of the 16th, I was handed this document by my mother instructing me that the house was to be sold if needed to pay her expenses. At that time, I had spoken to the attorney and he was refusing to grant the authority of the power of attorney document. We did not plan to sell the house that that time because we did not know how much the assisted living homes would cost and thought it was within her budget because the housing prices were lower back in Iowa. I had not lived in Iowa in over 40 years and was not familiar with their housing costs, their rules or their regulations, nor had I been there to visit on more than a few occasions and did not drive when I was there. We did not know where anything was, not the restaurants, not the hotels, not where to buy gas, not the local rules and regulations, not even how to get around without a map and someone giving us specific instructions. Mother had her heart set on moving into the home in Storm Lake, but the director there told us he had no openings and the waiting list was so long that they would not even take her name. And so, we were left with no other choice but to look elsewhere. Wendy and I visited no fewer than 20 such homes and finally visited the home in Alta, which appeared to be exactly what was needed. The cost was well beyond the amount she received from Social Security, but it was what she said she wanted and so we set the things in motion to make it happen.
On being informed by the minister that he had arranged with mother to purchase the house, which information was confirmed by mother, we made arrangements to sell the house. I know nothing about farming and my cousin informed me she did not have time to manage it for me. After discussing this with her and mother, we put the farm up for sale. With escrow looming, we had to remove the belongings from mother's home. She told us to take what we wanted, specified things for us to keep and the rest was to be sold at auction and those funds given to her church to help pay for an elevator for the elderly.    Some of her things had greater value, or so we thought, and would fetch more from an antique dealer. I had no time to deal with this here as I had to go back to work or lose my job, and if I lost my job, I lost my pension and would have no money to take care of my own old age, so I spoke with her financial adviser once more and we decided it was best to take these back to Los Angeles also where they could be appraised and fetch the best prices. The money from the sale of those things was to be added to the estate.

We drove non-stop back to California to deliver Carol's things and get home. We put Wendy on an air plane back. Mother was ensconced in the nursing home until she could move to her new home. Except for one huge fight which was in front of the entire nursing home, mother seemed satisfied with the results and she, herself, supervised some of the packing by telling us how to best wrap things. We were all loaded up and got into the truck and said our goodbyes. All was done--job well handled, or so we thought. We no sooner dropped Carol's things off and arrived home, when all hell broke loose.

After all was said and done and put into place, nobody was happy. I got sworn at by my mother, got accused of theft by my sister and received innumerable e-mails from Carol telling me what a horrid person I was for dealing with the problems that Carol refused to face. I received threatening messages from my nephews and nieces, and mother's attorney, none of whom could be bothered to step up to the plate the time they were truly needed, hind sight always being stronger than foresight or first hand experience. My family and I finally got so disgusted with the entire fiasco, that we sent a notice to mother signing off from everything and telling her to remove our names from all future documents. We spoke via telephone and agreed that everything I had in my possession was mine, including what was left in the bank account I was to use to pay the bills and she was free of all encumbrances and could return to her gambling at will. I told her to keep her money and give it to Charlotte. It was one of the most freeing experiences of my life. I was finally out from under her demanding control and it took over 60 years to get there. She was to sign the document and send a copy back, but never did. I later learned that she presented the papers to her bankers to remove me from the Trust as agreed and that the banker had been told mother had intended to sue me had I not complied...a fact of which I was unaware. Nothing was ever said about this to me other than vague threats of elder-abuse and arrest by Carol, which I ignored since she usually rampaged without thinking things through. I was not concerned because I had receipts for everything and the charge was without merit. Also, I had her written authority for everything I did. I did receive a vague letter from mother's attorney alluding to an inquiry from mother to sue me for fiscal malfeasance, which came suspiciously after a letter denying her access to additional funds and in which I mentioned this as an out, but that also was unfounded because again, I had receipts for everything and authorizations to go with them. However, enough was enough and we did not want or need her money enough to continue this pointless battle and I told her so. In signing the release, I relinquished any further claims on her estate My take from my supposed ill-gotten gains was about $500 from sale of her by-now, worthless valuable plate collection, a desk for which we paid $15 used, a $40 buffet and a $200 old china cabinet--all deemed by mother to be "valuable antiques", but appraised at exactly the amount she paid for them. I even offered to return them to her. She told me to keep them and to keep the money left in the one checking account, which amounted to $3000. Since I was not going back there and had several hundred dollars in charges on my own account for this trip, I closed the account out. No sooner done than I learned that she and her attorney tried to confiscate that as well. And no sooner was the matter deemed settled than she send a demand that I pay her nursing home bills of over $5000. I told her that since she was now in charge of her own life again, she could be in charge of that aspect as well as we had already set aside money in one of her investment accounts for taking care of that exact bill. I even received grief for how I spent the $3000 she told me was mine to keep. I paid Wendy out of that money and mother and Carol complained about it, but at that point, it was now my money to spend as I chose and none of their business. Below is the letter I sent to mother which led to the big "threat" which they could not carry off and my final sign off. With that, our relationship was over.

I cannot help but wonder, when all was said and done, why mother felt she she had the right to make the demands she made and why she felt she had the right to say and do whatever she pleased to anyone she felt like whenever she felt like doing so or to tell Carol and I how to live our lives or to demean us when it failed to match her standards. She treated Carol like dirt the entire time we were growing up and claimed it to be in Carol's best interests. She was jealous of our every achievements in life, begrudged our every happiness and said so openly, complained of loneliness, yet declined our companionship...asked our advice, then ignored it and berated us for giving it in the first place. Went out of her way to build walls between Carol and I from the time we were little girls, then complained because we lacked the closeness sisters should have had...and I am amazed that she then was not pleased at how things turned out. I wonder if she thought she was giving Carol constructive criticism when she told Carol she was a fat pig and that they should padlock the refrigerator to keep her from diving into the trough. . .or if she understood my bewilderment and hurt when I at the age of six, she took offense because I embarrassed her publicly by repeating the words of an adult, words I didn't even understand and was beat severely with a belt for well over half an hour and didn't understand what I had done to cause her action. I wonder if she realized that the coldness she showed to us over the years and the extent of her punishments had to do more with the anger and betrayal she felt over her failed marriage, of which we were an unwelcome reminder than to her misunderstanding of how children needed to be raised, loved and nurtured.    I wonder if she understood the betrayal that her grandchildren felt when she told them she loved them, then criticized their every moves and called their parents worthless. I doubt it.

Below was my response back to mother regarding her demands and discussing my concerns regarding her problems and my ultimate resignation as her caretaker.

[HOME] [CHURCH] [FAMILY] [HISTORY] [ON-LINE LIBRARY] [MOM]

THE SETTLEMENT
Mother's first actions upon being released from the hospital was to finish the destruction she began. All of the protestations of love, all of the complaints of depression and loneliness, all the desire to die and be done, all of the pain her addiction caused, immediately forgotten in her desire to return to her addiction and her gambling. In the hospital at Sioux City, mother instructed me to sell her house so she could move to the assisted living facility. Mother had the hospital call me at work to tell me she was on her death bed. I called my sister and asked her to come with me. She declined. My husband insisted I could not go through this alone as I do not deal well with death and so I asked if I could bring someone else with me. Mother agreed and instructed me to pay for their expenses. I brought my daughter-in-law, Wendy with me. We had less than 24 hours notice to get there, get a release from my job, arrange for Wendy's child care and deal with travel arrangements. I had been to Sioux City before, but not for over five years and mother had always done the driving. I knew no one in Sioux City and did not know my way around. The hotel room was arranged for us in advance and was where we had always stayed. While there, I spoke at length with my cousin, Charlotte, who was one of the other heirs to mother's estate, and asked her advise. I was told I was doing the right thing and to continue. I I called my sister and asked her what to do. She told me I was doing the right thing and to continue and no, she could not come to help. I spoke to mother's banker and mothers financial investment broker and asked their advice. The banker raised concern about mother's gambling problems. The financial advisor helped me to set up the Trust. I spoke to mother's attorney and asked him what to do. His advice, such as it was, was to do nothing. We were supposed to be met at the airport and taken to mother's home to get her car. There was no time. Nobody met us at the airport. We were left with only one other choice and that was to rent a car until we could get to mother's house and pick her's up at which time, we had to return the rental car. This entire adventure took place over the Memorial Day, one of the most expensive travel periods of the year. Hotels were booked up, gas was at an all time high and the car rental agencies and everyone were raising their prices for the annual feeding frenzy on the tourists. I had left in such a hurry that I needed to notify my employer as to how long I was going to be in Iowa. We had received an emergency rate from the airlines coming to Iowa, but they declined to give us the same returning as there was no longer an emergency and could not give us a round trip fee because we had no idea when we would be returning to California. The cost of our tickets, coming to Iowa were a special rate of $724 for the two of us. Our return tickets, which were not an emergency were that much for each of us. And that rate was subject to availability of the seating. Wendy had to go home first class because there were no other seats available on the airplane. It was that or walk home. Wendy suffered from severe altitude sickness. She could not help me make the drive home. This was explained to mother and I could not drive home alone. She instructed me to deliver Carol's things to her. I could not load them on the truck myself. In following her instructions to make delivery, I incurred expense. These were not my expenses. I did not ask for her things. She told me to take them, then berated me for spending the money to do so. She instructed me to sell her house, then complained when it was sold. I have no doubt at all that the minister, who tried to buy the house in good faith, and looked forward to having a place to live in his declining years, was treated with the same disrespect and driven out because I know mother would have treated him no differently than she treated everyone else who failed to give in to her demands.
	This was handed to us when we came to visit mother on the morning of May 16th at the Sioux City Hospital. We did not know mother was doing this and were surprised when we received it. This occurred several times during the whole ordeal and each time, we sought additional advice from others and were told to proceed as she instructed. Any time she varied from her original instructions, we asked for and received additional instructions in writing where necessary. When the nursing home director told us that Iowa law required that we either leave a "death trust" to take care of mother's final remains in case of death or pre-arrange her funeral, morbid though the thought was, I drove to Storm Lake to make the arrangements as required. I stopped first at the bank because we were told the attorney wanted her land abstracts, then on to the funeral home, but on attempting to deliver the abstracts, discovered the attorney's office was closed. There was no time to go back to his office, so we planned to deliver the abstracts by messenger once we arrived home. My profound apologies on behalf of this family to the minister, whom I am sure took the brunt of her change of heart in following through with the sale. He was a nice, pleasant man of God, he stood by her through the entire ordeal and was so pleased when she agreed to sell him the house and no doubt very much maligned when she decided to cancel. I am embarrassed for us that he was mistreated in this fashion.
When Wendy and I went to the hospital the morning of the 16th, I was handed this document by my mother instructing me that the house was to be sold if needed to pay her expenses. At that time, I had spoken to the attorney and he was refusing to grant the authority of the power of attorney document. We did not plan to sell the house that that time because we did not know how much the assisted living homes would cost and thought it was within her budget because the housing prices were lower back in Iowa. I had not lived in Iowa in over 40 years and was not familiar with their housing costs, their rules or their regulations, nor had I been there to visit on more than a few occasions and did not drive when I was there. We did not know where anything was, not the restaurants, not the hotels, not where to buy gas, not the local rules and regulations, not even how to get around without a map and someone giving us specific instructions. Mother had her heart set on moving into the home in Storm Lake, but the director there told us he had no openings and the waiting list was so long that they would not even take her name. And so, we were left with no other choice but to look elsewhere. Wendy and I visited no fewer than 20 such homes and finally visited the home in Alta, which appeared to be exactly what was needed. The cost was well beyond the amount she received from Social Security, but it was what she said she wanted and so we set the things in motion to make it happen. On being informed by the minister that he had arranged with mother to purchase the house, which information was confirmed by mother, we made arrangements to sell the house. I know nothing about farming and my cousin informed me she did not have time to manage it for me. After discussing this with her and mother, we put the farm up for sale. With escrow looming, we had to remove the belongings from mother's home. She told us to take what we wanted, specified things for us to keep and the rest was to be sold at auction and those funds given to her church to help pay for an elevator for the elderly. Some of her things had greater value, or so we thought, and would fetch more from an antique dealer. I had no time to deal with this here as I had to go back to work or lose my job, and if I lost my job, I lost my pension and would have no money to take care of my own old age, so I spoke with her financial adviser once more and we decided it was best to take these back to Los Angeles also where they could be appraised and fetch the best prices. The money from the sale of those things was to be added to the estate. We drove non-stop back to California to deliver Carol's things and get home. We put Wendy on an air plane back. Mother was ensconced in the nursing home until she could move to her new home. Except for one huge fight which was in front of the entire nursing home, mother seemed satisfied with the results and she, herself, supervised some of the packing by telling us how to best wrap things. We were all loaded up and got into the truck and said our goodbyes. All was done--job well handled, or so we thought. We no sooner dropped Carol's things off and arrived home, when all hell broke loose. After all was said and done and put into place, nobody was happy. I got sworn at by my mother, got accused of theft by my sister and received innumerable e-mails from Carol telling me what a horrid person I was for dealing with the problems that Carol refused to face. I received threatening messages from my nephews and nieces, and mother's attorney, none of whom could be bothered to step up to the plate the time they were truly needed, hind sight always being stronger than foresight or first hand experience. My family and I finally got so disgusted with the entire fiasco, that we sent a notice to mother signing off from everything and telling her to remove our names from all future documents. We spoke via telephone and agreed that everything I had in my possession was mine, including what was left in the bank account I was to use to pay the bills and she was free of all encumbrances and could return to her gambling at will. I told her to keep her money and give it to Charlotte. It was one of the most freeing experiences of my life. I was finally out from under her demanding control and it took over 60 years to get there. She was to sign the document and send a copy back, but never did. I later learned that she presented the papers to her bankers to remove me from the Trust as agreed and that the banker had been told mother had intended to sue me had I not complied...a fact of which I was unaware. Nothing was ever said about this to me other than vague threats of elder-abuse and arrest by Carol, which I ignored since she usually rampaged without thinking things through. I was not concerned because I had receipts for everything and the charge was without merit. Also, I had her written authority for everything I did. I did receive a vague letter from mother's attorney alluding to an inquiry from mother to sue me for fiscal malfeasance, which came suspiciously after a letter denying her access to additional funds and in which I mentioned this as an out, but that also was unfounded because again, I had receipts for everything and authorizations to go with them. However, enough was enough and we did not want or need her money enough to continue this pointless battle and I told her so. In signing the release, I relinquished any further claims on her estate My take from my supposed ill-gotten gains was about $500 from sale of her by-now, worthless valuable plate collection, a desk for which we paid $15 used, a $40 buffet and a $200 old china cabinet--all deemed by mother to be "valuable antiques", but appraised at exactly the amount she paid for them. I even offered to return them to her. She told me to keep them and to keep the money left in the one checking account, which amounted to $3000. Since I was not going back there and had several hundred dollars in charges on my own account for this trip, I closed the account out. No sooner done than I learned that she and her attorney tried to confiscate that as well. And no sooner was the matter deemed settled than she send a demand that I pay her nursing home bills of over $5000. I told her that since she was now in charge of her own life again, she could be in charge of that aspect as well as we had already set aside money in one of her investment accounts for taking care of that exact bill. I even received grief for how I spent the $3000 she told me was mine to keep. I paid Wendy out of that money and mother and Carol complained about it, but at that point, it was now my money to spend as I chose and none of their business. Below is the letter I sent to mother which led to the big "threat" which they could not carry off and my final sign off. With that, our relationship was over. I cannot help but wonder, when all was said and done, why mother felt she she had the right to make the demands she made and why she felt she had the right to say and do whatever she pleased to anyone she felt like whenever she felt like doing so or to tell Carol and I how to live our lives or to demean us when it failed to match her standards. She treated Carol like dirt the entire time we were growing up and claimed it to be in Carol's best interests. She was jealous of our every achievements in life, begrudged our every happiness and said so openly, complained of loneliness, yet declined our companionship...asked our advice, then ignored it and berated us for giving it in the first place. Went out of her way to build walls between Carol and I from the time we were little girls, then complained because we lacked the closeness sisters should have had...and I am amazed that she then was not pleased at how things turned out. I wonder if she thought she was giving Carol constructive criticism when she told Carol she was a fat pig and that they should padlock the refrigerator to keep her from diving into the trough. . .or if she understood my bewilderment and hurt when I at the age of six, she took offense because I embarrassed her publicly by repeating the words of an adult, words I didn't even understand and was beat severely with a belt for well over half an hour and didn't understand what I had done to cause her action. I wonder if she realized that the coldness she showed to us over the years and the extent of her punishments had to do more with the anger and betrayal she felt over her failed marriage, of which we were an unwelcome reminder than to her misunderstanding of how children needed to be raised, loved and nurtured. I wonder if she understood the betrayal that her grandchildren felt when she told them she loved them, then criticized their every moves and called their parents worthless. I doubt it. Below was my response back to mother regarding her demands and discussing my concerns regarding her problems and my ultimate resignation as her caretaker.