Anonymous Lawyer

Old people are a real problem sometimes. Anonymous Wife and I decided to celebrate the July 4th holiday by putting her grandmother into a nursing home against her will. She's originally from out here, and we're the closest relatives in the area, so over the past few years it's fallen on me and Anonymous Wife to bear the brunt of caring for her. We hired someone to do her grocery shopping, hired someone else to visit her once every other week, and paid for a pendant she wears around her neck to call for help in case she ever falls. And, more than once, I've had to take the kids to see her, so they can "know their great-grandmother before she dies." No one would want to be known in the shape she's in, and she doesn't even know who they are. She claims to be mentally with it, but I gave her an assignment from work, something easy that even a summer associate could do, and she had no idea how to make heads or tails of it. When someone's less competent than a summer associate, you know it's time to put them down. Last week she asked for one of us to drive her to the doctor, and that was pretty much the last straw. I asked one of the other partners at the firm, who recently found a mental hospital for his wife to keep her from being able to pursue her divorce proceedings and getting half of his assets, if he knew of any old age homes nearby that didn't steal things from the patients or hit them too hard, and he recommended a place. So we told her we were picking her up to take her to the circus, which she was very excited about, and then we dropped her off at the home instead, and now, thankfully, she'll be out of our hair and I can concentrate on having a productive fourth of July in the office.