I just recently turned 65. I’ve known for a while that it is time to have a difficult conversation. Actually, it’s going to be many of them. What’s going to happen to me as I get older? Who will care for me if I can’t take care of myself, or my husband is no longer able to?
My husband and I have no children. He’s an only child. I have an older sister who has no children. We have no close family members or heirs to whom will naturally fall the responsibilities of caring for us in this final phase of our lives. Where can we go for help in navigating this part of our journey together?
I first spoke to Carolyn Bradley, Ph.D., LCSW, LCADC, retired MSW Director and an associate professor in the School of Social Work at Monmouth University, and member of their LGBTQ Older Adult Project Steering Committee. Her most pertinent words to me were, “Your family of choice. Build it, and make sure it will be recognized.” She advised me to start calling. “Each county has an office on aging. Municipalities have senior centers that can offer help with paperwork, or who have social workers who can help.”
I was soon aware that if I don’t start planning, someone who doesn’t know me is going to make medical and living decisions for me, and my money and possessions are going to go to the state. Of course, this is assuming my husband is no longer around, or we both have become incapacitated.
I decided to look around my area to see if there were agencies or facilities specially designed to help me in this process. I found Judy Parnes, executive director of Elder Life Management in Tinton Falls. This is a legally designated affiliate of a national organization of aging life care professionals. I could hire them to help me plan a strategy of who will manage and make decisions for me if I am no longer able to do so. Judy advised me to find an attorney who would be able to help me prepare a financial, or durable, power of attorney, to take care of my finances when I can’t, and a medical power of attorney for those decisions.
She also asked me if I had a will, and if it was up to date. I hesitated to answer, but said, “Yes, and it’s being taken care of.” She applauded me for doing this work at my age. She related that often people my age come to her about their parents, and then realize that they should be finding out this information about themselves.
My final stop, for now, was with attorney Robin Wernik of Wernik & Salvatore in Hazlet. She reaffirmed much of what Judy had said, and added, “Now is the time.” She listed for me the legal steps I needed to take. It emboldened me to gather up all of those ideas my husband and I have been jotting down about things in our wills that we need to change, and formulate them into coherent text that can be presented to an attorney, and become the will and testament we both are happy with.
This made me realize that I have to dig up the advanced directive, or living will, that I had written 30 years ago, and decide what needs to go in it for me, today, and for me when I can no longer make those decisions. It inspired me to sit down with my husband and finally decide who we were going to talk to about being the person to take on the responsibility of tending to us when we can no longer take care of each other.
That’s going to be a difficult conversation. Perhaps it will be more difficult for the person we choose. Or maybe even more difficult for us if they decline. But that won’t prevent us from having it, and the other conversations that, once you start them, make you wonder why you avoided them for so long.
