I’m off to the estate-planning seminar on Wednesday to get a jump on long term financial decisions that will have to be made but I’m coming up on a grey area in this whole care giving business. I try to stay out of Miss Cathy’s personal affairs as much as possible but we live in close quarters and lets face it-once you’ve had to bathe someone and help them in the bathroom the boundaries get a little blurred.

I’m sitting in the car right now writing as I wait for her while she’s in the bank “taking care of some business”. What the “business” is I didn’t ask (thinking it’s none of mine) and she didn’t offer. The caregiver in me who is aware of her finances is wondering what she’s up too and if it’s responsible of me to not be in there with her while she does whatever it is she’s doing (a light shade of grey).

Tony has taken over paying her bills and I handle her day-to-day financial needs. Now that she’s feeling empowered by the Neurologists visit it seems (to me) that she’s flexing her independent “muscles” a bit (if only that included some exercise like going outside and walking like the doctor suggested, too). Anyway, it’s her money but now that Tony and I are involved it’s our business, too.

I don’t know what she’s doing in there right now but I do know that she’s a senior citizen on a fixed income who’s been “pretty” responsible about her finances but she has made some (how shall I put this?) questionable choices money-wise that may or may not have anything to do with her condition-again (we’re in that grey area).

All I know is that I’ve “chosen” to respect her privacy and hopefully she’ll tell me what’s she’s up too. I’ll know soon enough because I have access to her accounts, but that’s not the point really. I just hope I’m not going to have to find a financial mess that Tony and I will have to clean up.

I guess the best I can do is to look for patterns, see what her financial reasoning is on paper, judge how responsible her choices are moving forward and deal with it then and that’s pretty black and white.