Life After Mother

Life After Mother — Talk About Elder Abuse

“This is elder abuse!” Some staffer exclaimed, barging into an examining room at my mother’s HMO.  My mother was waiting…

3 years ago

Life After Mother — Probate Doesn’t End, Just Fades Away

Probate doesn’t end in a way that calls for marking the occasion. In my case anyway, it looks to be…

3 years ago

Life After Mother:  Compassion, Choices and Courage

My mother often expressed her support for the right of terminal patients to end their own lives, sometimes saying she’d…

3 years ago

Life After Mother: Overwhelmed by Free Gifts

My parents both gave generously to nonprofit organizations, and those organizations were very generous with the “free gifts” often packaged…

3 years ago

Life After Mother — Three Bedrooms, Just Me

When I moved into my mother’s house, I cleared out the front bedroom that she’d been using the way people…

4 years ago

Life After Mother: Have a Heart for What’s Inherited

One of my mother’s friends was featured on a TV show about hoarding. To this day, if you try to…

4 years ago

My Recycled Life — My Mother’s Gift Drawer

“So that’s your mother’s gift drawer,” said a dealer who’d come to my mother’s house to see what furniture, collectibles,…

4 years ago

My Recycled Life — House Is a Museum

My mother, a frustrated artist, turned her suburban home into her own personal museum. She painted most of the walls…

4 years ago

Telemarketing Preys on Seniors

My mother is still alive on countless telemarketing lists, whether from robocalls or human salespersons. It’s bad enough I get…

4 years ago

Stop Procrastinating About Estate Planning

Getting my mother to stop procrastinating and make a decision, any decision, about her estate, was a “someday” task for…

4 years ago