The Pro Way

It has been suggested that my husband and I need to step in and take over the situation in my Father-in-law's handling of my Mother-in-law's care, beginning with an investigation of exploitation on the part of the Certified Nursing Assistant who currently calls him, "Daddy" while providing none of the care of my mother-in-law. She uses immigrants in fear of losing their green card for that job. We have not turned the rocks or run the numbers, but a casual glance gives reason to suspect that this woman currently holds more of my father-in-law's dwindling estate than he does. There is not a fiber of our collective being that believes she will be there for him after he can no longer pay her 6 figure salary. There is growing evidence that his estate will not out-last the expense of private, long-term care. They may soon join the growing number of elders in our country that go straight from private nursing on La-de-dah Lane to a welfare nursing home. I have long seen this slick-talking retired Exxon executive as the captain of the Valdez (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez) and have never believed his legacy would be any greater than an oil slick.
But there is Grandmother. Her fancy home is reduced to her urine scented room in the back of the house. Her elegant bedroom furnishings have mostly been replaced by nursing equipment. She is an invalid and a captive audience to these antics. Her beloved grandsons are ever more alienated by the wall of my father-in-law's noble martyr routine and the well-paid ladies who unwittingly enforce his brow-beating of the sons who "had it so easy growing up." My heart breaks when I see their hurt over being cut off from their beloved grandmother, and they do sincerely love her. "Grandmother" was the most accomplished role of her pretense-filled life. The FIL is still trying to convince himself and the world that bigger ice cream cones and fancier toys are all there is to "having it easy." He is a far better business executive than father. He still has the power to turn his sons and grandsons into quivering wrecks with his verbal put downs, slung like poison arrows within his self-congratulatory tales. His well-paid ladies - especially the immigrants - have no clue they are reinforcing a lifetime of degradation when they quote him. He is a very slick story teller to the unindoctrinated. His tales of being a poor farm boy during the depression era really are quite touching the first 100 or so times you hear them. Before you begin to feel the need to brace yourself against the cleverly inserted put-downs of the members of the succeeding generation who "don't know how good they have it." In my personal case, I need to brace myself for all the places I am triggered by his slandering of my own country, white trash roots. Not that he acknowledges those on any level. He is still insisting I am the suburban sorority girl he wanted for his son. Thanks, but no thanks. I still don't see the desirability of post-sorority life, but I don't bother arguing with him. It will only gain me yet another lecture on the importance of secrets and pretense.
In my personal heart, I want nothing to do with any of it. My mother-in-law class bashed me so many times that my heart is long hardened against her out of self-defense. I have far more faith in my relationship with God than any economic system, so they can keep their money. I have had many fantasies about having special coffins built out of dollar bills for them and a tombstone that reads, "They took it with them when they went."
But it is not about me. My beloved sons and husband are in agony.