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[quote=Anonymous]Just here to commiserate, OP. My mother was also insanely stubborn in her senior years and insisted on staying in my hometown where I couldn't be there to help if she had an emergency. We had a lot of years where I tried to get her to make smarter decisions that would allow her to age in place comfortably (and closer to me) while she was still young enough to make those changes comparatively easily.

We fought about it a lot, TBH. Wicked fights. And then we'd go through phases where she seemed to admit she needed to plan better, and even looked at various senior housing options near us. It never happened though. She just kept putting it off.

Then she got sick one August and died eight weeks later. At a comparatively young age too. 20 years before I thought it would happen. On top of the devastation at losing her, I had to clean up a gigantic financial and logistical mess from thousands of miles away. It was everything I had hoped to avoid.

And you know what? It totally sucked. As bad or worse than I imagined it might be when we used to have those fights. I wish my mom could have been kinder to me and planned more because she really left me with a mountain of turd blossoms.

But she was so terrified of death that she just couldn't face it. Pretending it would never happen was how she managed her extreme anxiety about her life ending. It's what allowed her to be happy (not paralyzed with fear) in her final years.

In hindsight, I wish I had found a way to just accept that pretending she'd never die was how she was able to live. I wish I had joined her in that fantasy instead of fighting her. Because none of those fights actually lead to any change that would have had any measurable impact on the hell I had to walk through when she died.

I certainly hope your mom's health scare moves her to a point where she can make better decisions, but if it doesn't, I encourage you to accept what you can't control and just enjoy the time you have left with her.  [/quote]

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