If You Don’t, the Vultures Will

What a morning.

Over the last ten days, I have been hearing a lot about my great uncle, whom I will call Bill. He’s my grandmother’s brother. He’s 89, and he never married, so he has no kids. The family somehow lost track of him, and recently, his great-nephew contacted my aunt and asked her to pay his nursing home bill.

It looks like the great-nephew and his wife convinced Bill to sell his house, buy another one, and put it in their names. And he has Social Security and a pension from the company he worked for all his life. And he has Medicare. Yet somehow, he owed money to a nursing home. Where is the money going? See if you can guess. Unless my aunt and sister and I are badly misled, these miscreants have been cashing his checks and waiting for him to die. And they apparently thought no one would be alarmed if they showed up and asked for thirteen thousand dollars to pay his bills.

My aunt got into gear and located him, and she got a power of attorney, and now he’s in a nursing home in her town. By all accounts, it’s a decent place. The family is getting him things to make his life more pleasant. And it looks like the great-nephew and his wife are about to face a grand jury.

Honest to God, where does trash like this come from? We should have kept tabs on him, and that is our shame, but what kind of low life would put an old man in a home, take his money, and then ask other relatives to pay his bills?

I don’t know why he turned to these losers instead of us, but that’s water under the bridge now.

Don’t let this happen in your family. If an older relative wanders off and you lose touch, find out what’s going on before it gets this far. When an older person seems strong and capable, it’s easy to think he can take care of himself. Sometimes they can, and sometimes they can’t.

Eastern Kentucky must have unique soil, because the trash that grows there is a wonder to behold.