Blog 29: Mom Was Taken, Part II

Please click here to read the first part of this blog post. 

At one point during this crisis, after Renee succeeded in getting the POA, I wrote her a letter and told her I will not come home to care for Mom.  I said I will come home to visit her, but she may as well not expect me to come back and take care of her.  I didn’t like what Renee was doing, and I felt that she was expecting us to care for Mom, while she dictated to us how to do it.  Basically, she wanted to run everything, from controlling the money, to controlling Mom and us.  She didn’t do anything before, because she said she didn’t have control, but now that she did, everything had to be done her way. 

She was telling Annie she could care for Mom, but I knew something was up with that because of the problems that had been happening.

Lynda also sent Renee an email that she was no longer going to care for Mom.  Renee basically came in and derailed everything that had been done for Mom.  Though I have to admit, since I moved, Lynda was not doing the best job as POA.  She wasn’t taking care of things in a timely manner.  Mom’s car was still in her garage, she wasn’t putting together a schedule for Mom’s care, and there were some phone calls that needed to be taken care of regarding Mom’s annuity, that she wasn’t doing.

Renee told us to not talk to each other about Mom, but to only talk to her.  We needed to talk to each other, obviously we needed support and a shoulder to cry on, and Renee was not the one to go to for that.

Renee was staying at Mom’s house the following weekend.  She had to do it, because nobody else would go over there after what she did.  She ended up leaving Mom home alone because her daughter cut her finger and she drove the three hours home. I understand it’s scary when your kids get hurt, but her daughter had her dad there with her, and it was only a small cut on her finger.  Leaving Mom alone could have been deadly.

Mom ended up taking her car out of the garage that night and drove off.  Annie went to her house and saw that she was gone!  She called my sisters and they thought Renee was with her.  Annie said Mom eventually came home, and she stayed with her that night.  Mom said that she went to the cemetery, which is a long ways away (who knows if she did) and to the store.  That was the last time Mom drove her car.  My sister Kathy ended up buying Mom’s Honda several months later, and inside the trunk were rotten groceries that she had bought that day she drove off alone.

Just two weeks after Renee met with the attorney and led him to believe Mom was well and able to make a conscious decision to appoint her POA and throw out the old one (which, by the way, we already had a statement from Mom’s doctor stating her incompetency), she did the unthinkable, and had Mom committed to the mental ward of a hospital.  She claimed she was suicidal and threatening to kill someone (probably Renee).  She didn’t take Mom to the local hospital, instead she purposely avoided her doctor, and she drove her out of town an hour away.  That hospital wouldn’t admit her.  So she drove her to another hospital even further away, and they agreed to admit her. 

She left her there for 2 1/2 weeks, and went on vacation with her family.  She never went to see her that whole time she was hospitalized.  She didn’t tell me or two other sisters about it.  We found out when we couldn’t reach Mom at home, and after three days of anxiety and wondering what was going on, the only other sister that knew, told us what she had done.  That’s how we found out. 

Renee said that said she would disclose everything to us when she got POA, but she was already showing how it was going to be.  It was getting scary. 

I spoke to Mom on the phone and she was very scared, worried, and crying.  It just broke my heart.  She didn’t understand why she was there.  She was in a lockdown part of the hospital and was not allowed phone calls or visitors after Renee found out she was talking to her daughters on the phone.  Mom was not mentally ill, she had Alzheimer’s.  I was 1,600 miles away, and I had no idea how long they were going to keep her.  I found out that Renee didn’t want them to release her until she got back from vacation because she didn’t want her going home, back into Annie’s care. 

Previous to this, Renee was telling Annie she could care for her.  She was tricking her to go along with the POA, when what she really wanted was to get Mom far away from Annie.  There was no talk about coming together as a family to discuss this.  I felt that us sisters should have been informed and been able to be a part of her decision.  Mom has five daughters.  We all love her very much and want to be a part of her life and care what happens to her.  We each had our own wishes for Mom, and we should have all been able to discuss our concerns and desires as a family.  To leave someone out and not care about their feelings, was a terrible disservice to Mom and to each other.  Mom said there’d be trouble if Renee was in charge, and she was right.

When Mom was released, they put her in Renee’s care.  Renee brought her home to stay with her and her family until she got things in order.  She was planning her next move, and we found out about it when we received papers in the mail.  All of us received a Petition for Guardianship and Conservatorship in the mail from an attorney.  We didn’t see it coming and I felt like I got hit in the stomach with a baseball bat.  That was the whole reason why she had Mom committed.  It was so they would say she needs a legal guardian.

A court date was set and I decided to object and I submitted a letter to the courts.  It stopped her for three months and it was set for another hearing.  My other sisters were not onboard with what she was doing, either.

During that three months, Renee was successful in getting two of the four sisters to go to court with her and testify on her behalf.  Somehow she got Lynda on board with her.  Lynda was the one she swooped in on and took the POA away from, and Lynda said she would never forgive her for it.  But Renee was good at manipulating and working her angles to get what she wanted, and knowing that Lynda could be easily persuaded because I was no longer living in town, she took advantage of her vulnerabilites.  She said the right things, and she succeeded in getting Kathy to go along with her, too.  Had I lived there still, Annie, Kathy, Lynda and I would have stopped this legal proceeding.  But I couldn’t really do anything since I moved and now lived 1,600 miles away.  What credit would the courts give me when I lived out of state?  My sister Annie stood all alone.  And she didn’t stand a chance.  Annie, Renee and I are the strongest ones in the family.  Kathy and Lynda will go along with whomever promises things will be easier for them, and as long as they don’t have to worry anymore.

The second court hearing was three months later, and I remained silent.  I decided to just let Renee have it.  I didn’t want to spend thousands of dollars of my money, fighting my sister in the court system, when Renee was spending Mom’s money seeking the guardianship.  I would have been spending Mom’s hard earned money if I would have dragged it out in court.  I’ve seen those types of situations from working as a legal secretary, and it could go on for years, and I did not want my family to be subjected to that.  I bowed out of the legal battle.

Renee made promises to us that I was hoping she would keep.  So far, she hadn't.  But I still had hopes that things would work out.