He kept saying, “Don’t leave me here. I didn’t know. I thought you were sick.”
That’s what my son had told him. That I was getting worse and couldn’t take care of him anymore. My husband was confused already from the dementia, and our son used that confusion like a crowbar.
I just stood there holding his hand while he cried into my coat like a child.
The nurse pulled me aside later and quietly asked if I was the legal power of attorney. I said yes. Always had been. She looked surprised and disappeared into an office.
Turns out my son had shown up with printed paperwork trying to start emergency placement himself. Told them I was “becoming unstable” and couldn’t manage Dad safely at home anymore. He even brought one of my old prescriptions from years ago for anxiety like it proved something.
But he wasn’t on any legal documents. Not one.
The facility administrator actually apologized to me. Said they assumed the family had agreed. Assumed. That word still makes me angry.
I brought my husband home the next morning.
When we pulled into the driveway he started crying again because his recliner was back where it belonged. I had to help him sit down because his hands were shaking so badly.
My son came by two days later acting defensive before I even opened the door. Said he was “just trying to do what was best.”
Then he admitted the real reason.
Dad’s care was “getting expensive,” and he thought selling our house sooner rather than later would make things easier for everybody.
Everybody except us, apparently.
I told him not to come back for a while.
He hasn’t.