Word: guardianship
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After their father died in 1994, Kathleen wanted to apply for legal guardianship to put their increasingly resistant mother in an Alzheimer's unit, but she wanted her sisters to agree. "I felt it would be easier for all of us," she explains, "if we came to that conclusion together." And that's when the wounds of childhood really divided them. The youngest sister--described as the peacemaker--could not bear the rage her mother was sure to feel. "My sister had a fantasy," Wittstock says, "that Mom would get better and that she could take Mom to lunch...
...took four years and 15 police reports before the youngest sister gave in and agreed that Kathleen should become their mother's guardian. Wittstock assumed guardianship in 2004. By that time, their mother was living alone and unkempt in her condo with no food in the house and the gas turned off. Now Mom is safely ensconced in an assisted-living home, and Wittstock is proud of what she accomplished with her sisters. "Our relationships are not always great," she says, "but we work...
Then there are cases like that of an Iowa social worker who had guardianship over her mother, who was in a persistent vegetative state following a reaction to iodine. After three years, the woman and her sister agreed to remove their mother's feeding tube, but they did not inform their aunts for fear the women would try to stop them. "To this day, they don't really talk to us," says the social worker...
...helpless. Many states offer heirs some protections. In Pennsylvania, notes Jeffrey Marshall, a certified elder-law attorney in Williamsport, Pa., you can hire a lawyer and go to court to "seek an accounting." More usual and costly is a guardianship suit, by which you seek to become your mother's legal guardian, revoking the POA. Alternatively, you could call adult protective services to investigate a suspected case of financial abuse...
...then cheerily fixed the computer glitch, reloaded the film processor and delivered the remaining pages to the light table. Both Kate and Anne have been the consummate breakfast companions over eggs and Diet Coke in Adams. The magazine has been cleaner, clearer and even earlier under their devoted guardianship...