A message board posting that was shared with me to see if I could recommend anyone, as I live in San Francisco:
“Does anyone know of a service in SF that can help a widow deal with all the paperwork and logistics when a spouse dies? My uncle just passed and my 80yr old aunt could use some support.”
Lots of paperwork in that situation for sure.
Important Question 1: Is it paid or unpaid?
I think there are lots of people who receive my weekly California events newsletter or who I otherwise know who would do that work part time. There is always a supply of retired folks, housewives, and students, in my experience looking for those kind of short term opportunities to make a little side money, to help a person out, and to grow.
Question 2: She isn’t talking about a free service is she?
If your friend is talking about a free service, I would really, really strongly recommend that she not even consider such a thing.
These services where they show up at your home to “help” are seen as profit centers for the state. They look around the home for other opportunities to “help” that will generate income opportunities for their agency. Helping is really the last thing on their mind. Getting the state more involved in that particular home is first on their mind.
I’m working with 2 families right now who made that mistake, one has had a disabled child seized by the state, the others has been in the process of having an elder family member seized by the state. And don’t get me started on the number of Child Protective Services matters that I’ve seen like this — perfectly healthy, happy, normal children who end up in foster care, who then experience the most horrific abuse. And why? Because the mother or father opened the door for them to come in and have a look.
It’s really important that in California right now nobody let anymore from the state onto your private property no matter what reason they give.
No one.
Not for any reason.
Off my property.
Off my property.
They are welcome to shout at you from the sidewalk but not from on your property. Not even if they have a police officer with them. In fact, especially if they have a police officer with them.
Off my property.
Do not even engage them in anything else until they are off your property.
Do not even give them the opportunity to peak through your cracked door.
This lady wants to send the state over to her aunts house to hang out for a few weeks under the guise of “helping” her with paperwork.
Wow. She either really hates her aunt or is really unaware of what is happening in the world.
Question 3: She cares enough about her aunt to post noise onto a message board to strangers but not to actually make the trip to San Francisco to do the work?
If it’s unpaid, I would definitely ask your friend, why she is not doing the work herself. She deserves that pushback.
Posting on a message board while you won’t do the work for your own aunt is sort of a cop-out.
I spent 6 weeks this past year out of town with an elderly relative who just lost her husband. That’s not because it was easy. That’s because it is what family does.
Question 4: Where have you been the last 3 years? Under a rock? Where have you been the last 20 years?
This idea that anyone but family is supposed to care for you in such situations is silly. You don’t want the state involved at moments of crisis. We need to get rid of that idea.
There are too many people in great pain right now because they trusted the state at a moment of crisis.
Covid was not an exception, it was a continuation of the established norm.
Question 5: Did your aunt and uncle not invest in others?
This is the reality of life: you spend a lot of time investing in your community in the first 40 years of life in order to build the connections that nurture you in the following 40 years of life.
You have children — lots of them. If you don’t have children you make and save lots of money and nurture relationships with the people who will be your community even in your darkest days.
If you never realized this detail now is the time to start.
The baby boomers generally neglected this behavior that was standard throughout human history. They spent and spent and spent on themselves and now want some kind of handout. They inherited the wealthiest generation man has ever known and will pass along leaving behind a significantly poorer generation than the one they inherited.
The idea that the aunt doesn’t have 20 people around her willing to help is a huge warning flag to me. What kind of life did her and the uncle live? Why isn’t she surrounded by friends and family? I am very suspicious by this post. Clearly there is something about how auntie lived her life that was not in preparation for the day that all of us inevitably face — the day we die. It will happen to all of us. Prepare for it. Don’t claim it took you be surprise and look for pity. All of use will die. That’s a reality we have faced since the first funeral we were brought to at some single-digit age.
I have stood by several relatives and close friends in the past three years as they died or experienced the death of a spouse. It was not an inheritance that moved me. It was not anything they could do for me that moved me. It was certainly not convenience that moved me. A bond that was built earlier in life moved me out of a sense of obligation to be there not just during the good but also during the bad.
This is how things have worked for all humanity.
The first 40 years are meant to be lived in preparation for the second 40 years. Anyone who has grown up cross-generationally and has seen the life cycle play out is likely to realize that. This note sounds like the story of a baby-boomer aunt who chose to live life differently and her Gen X niece who is choosing to do the same.
If that describes you as well, please reform.
Your last days can be spent in the care of the state, which will treat you unspeakably inhumanely, or it can be in the care of a handful of loved ones who, if you were good to, them, are likely to give you very different final years than the state will give you.
I won’t even start with the horror stories of those who neglected that basic realization about the world.
But it is fair to say that living life partly for the generation that follows after you almost always pays tremendous dividends later in life.
That, at least, has been what I have witnessed first hand.
This is a real suspicious note and one that is all too common. I have a lot of sympathy for those who lose a spouse. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for those who live a prodigal life for themselves, often establishing dysfunctional relationships with family for decades, and are reduced to begging for attention late in life. Something is very amiss with that picture. It is one that needs rooting out of our lives if we, ourselves, are building around ourselves any life remotely resembling that.
Allan Stevo is a bestselling author and activist. You can get his book Face Masks in One Lesson (here) and Face Masks Hurt Kids (here).
While it wasn't free, after the first of my hip replacements, a decade ago, the surgeon's office "kindly" sent a physical therapist to my house to check my wound. Not knowing what else she was about she was allowed in and into my bedroom. Actually she had another woman with her so I had two invaders there. She looked at my incision but she also started surveying the premises and asking about things in my house. Though I was on plenty of pain pills she handed me her checklist and told me to sign off on her visit. Then they left. Later that day I picked up what I had signed and began reading it. She had filled it out making many observations about my lifestyle. I was stunned. I called the office of the company she worked for demanding to know what had happened. The snotty young female told me that checklist was collecting info for the government and would be kept at the office permanently for the government to access. I was outraged but I learned not to ever let anyone else in my house.
Very nice!