J told him that about an hour into their drive back to Oregon, M called him and said "Aren't you boys coming to pick me up to go to breakfast?" J explained that we were on a plane and he and BA were on the road driving home. She hung up on him without another word.
When J and BA arrived home, there were several messages on their machine from B's sister, and each message was more and more frantic... she was asking about her brother, and what had happened.
J called B's brother and found out that M had finally called him to let him know that B passed away... 5 days after he passed away, 3 days after they had a service for him. That wasn't bad enough. M then called him 2 more times to tell him the exact same thing. B's brother was the one that called their sister to let her know. M didn't even bother calling her.
The funeral home called J to let him know that M had called the funeral home 6 times asking where B's urn and cremains were. Each time they would explain that we had dropped off the form she needed to bring back and sign and they would give her the urn with cremains. SIX times she called, oblivious to the fact that she was told the same thing over and over. On call #6, the funeral home director told her that she would bring a copy of the form and the urn with cremains to M's house. The funeral home director told J that they felt that was much safer than having M driving.
We all think that at some point, M will find the form that we had dropped off and she will start calling the funeral home asking where B's urn and ashes are. We're just waiting for that call to come.
J and BA made calls to the police department about our concerns, they directed them to call the local Senior Services Department (which they did). They also called M's doctor to let them know of our concerns. Under state law, we can't force M to go to the doctor for an evaluation, M has to come on her own volition. The head nurse did say she would make M an appointment, call her and tell her she had an appointment, but it was up to M to actually show up for the appointment. J called the local relative and asked if she could help M remember the appointment and make sure she got to it. The local relative refused because she felt that M was perfectly fine and that we were just trying to do something sneaky. Yep, there's no lengths that we won't go through to get a train set and some salt and pepper shakers. We're evil that way.
Three days after we left, M called J and asked him for help with the paperwork and finances. Had she allowed us to set up her computer so the boys could remote in, or at the very least make a copy of their finances to see what needed to be done, they could help her, but she didn't allow that, wouldn't even let them see her financials or any paperwork and told them over and over that she could handle everything on her own... so no, we can't help her. She called back 10 minutes after they talked and asked him the same thing.
Ten days after we left, hubby called M who said that she couldn't figure out the paperwork, couldn't balance her bank statements, so she will go to the lawyers and have them take care of everything and pay her bills. Um... lawyers aren't accountants, and lawyers are also very expensive, so she's paying someone who isn't qualified to handle her finances and charge her way too much money to do something they aren't qualified to do. As we predicted, she will quickly run out of money. Our best hope is that they can see that she isn't capable of caring for herself and put her in a nice home, but we also know the nature of these things and as we also predicted, whether she signs everything over to the lawyer, or the state swoops in, the house, its belongings and everything will be sold and nobody in the family will get one red cent, nobody will get family pictures or train sets, or salt and pepper shakers... it'll all be gone. As it is also the nature of things, she will be placed in the cheapest place and probably receive substandard care... which means as we also predicted, it will be up to us to make sure that doesn't happen. Unfortunately it will happen after all of her money is gone, all of her belongings sold and money spent of legal fees. We tried to help her. We tried to make sure she would have been cared for, safe, and healthy. She said no.
As much as she infuriated us, treated the boys like crap their entire lives, belittled and pushed the daughters-in-law away (they told BA at her wedding that they wished J was marrying someone else because he would be much happier)... we are all decent people and it is our duty to take care of our parents when they are unable to. I just wish she would have made it easier.
Postscript: After we returned home, hubby turned on his computer and fired up Facebook and got an immediate notification that he had a message waiting on the Facebook Messenger app... from his father. It was simply a picture of Multnomah Falls, a place they used to visit a lot when hubby was a child. It had been sent on October 25, 2017. We have no idea why it just popped up suddenly, other than we hope it was B's way of saying that he was in a much nicer place.
Postscript: Hubby called his mother (he and J call every few days to make sure she's fine) and asked M if she was still planning on flying out here to go to his college graduation ceremony. He said that he knew how important it was for them (since they had nagged and bitched for years about how disappointed they were that he never went to college) M responds "well, it was ONLY important to B" and said she's not coming.
