"The Talk"

Just when I have only one week to pack and load all my personal and business possessions and I'm panicking because I don't know how I'll get it all done myself, my father decides he needs to discuss his funeral and his important papers.

Naturally, this is a difficult discussion at the best of times: talking about when he will die. He feels it will be soon, I think it will be several years. He's doing pretty well, getting around, getting groceries, getting the mail and going to dinner in the dining hall. His comprehension is slow, but at 90 that's to be expected. I think he'll be around for quite a while yet.

I was trying to explain that without Power of Attorney I can't step in and make decisions about his finances - there was a problem with his bank account that I couldn't fix - or his health when he is hospitalized. His wife still has Power of Attorney for him and she doesn't want to relinquish it. I'm not sure what she is thinking since she has given Power of Attorney over her affairs to her eldest son because she is no longer able to make decisions for herself. But she isn't ready to allow me to be POA for my father, her husband. All Dad needs to do is call his attorney and have the document changed, and she would never know, but for now, it will remain the way she wants it. I realize she just doesn't want to be eliminated from decision-making, and she wouldn't because I always confer with her. Perhaps in her mind the change of POA would mean the marriage is dissolved. It's hard to know what she's thinking. I didn't like that Dad said to her face that she's mentally incompetent. She knows that, but who wants to be told that?

Another challenging subject was confusion over the the Will versus the POA. I tried to explain that the POA confers decision-making rights to one person only (either my step-mother or me, not both) when the subject (my Dad) is still living; and the Will - where I am designated as the Alternate Executrix after my step-mother - confers the obligation to carry out Dad's wishes after his death. Dad got angry and yelled at me, "You think you know everything." He kept trying to tell me that his Will gives me Power of Attorney now, but that's not what the Will says. And on his written instruction sheet he has handwritten that I have POA, but it's not a legal document because it's not signed, witnessed or dated and it's not accepted by financial institutions. I did study basic law in university, but that doesn't make me an expert so I kept my mouth shut. I let the matter go because it's not worth his getting so upset. I'll just deal with things as best I can as events occur.

Now I have copies of the critical documents and a key to his storage locker. But the upshot of all of this is: he feels I should remain in Erie until....

That means I must remain here indefinitely instead of executing my plan to travel to see North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.

Maybe it's best.