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Anonymous wrote:so bizarre my elderly family loves calls and visits but we are close.

your elderly parent married to someone in their 60s loves calls from 3 kids daily?

my mother loves calls and visits but she lives alone and is very dependent on my sister and me

My mother is older than Hackman and I don’t call her every day or every week. She’s busy and so am I. Get over your judgmental small minded selves.

So she could die, and you wouldn't know for a week?

DP, but so what? Mom is still dead regardless of whether you know the minute after it happens or a month later.

We don’t know whether he died instantly or died of dehydration after lying there for a few days, or similar.

+1 Exactly

But the dog and wife died too. All at the same time?

They ruled out monoxide and nat gas.

Poisoned? On purpose? And dog happened to eat it too?

It was a boulder.

See, I brought up the boulder theory back on page 2, and my post was deleted. Someone out there doesn't want us to know about the boulder problem out west.

Nah, more likely was lightning or dangerous gasses coming from a stream.

She collected the couples' dog Zinna from the vet on February 9, where the canine had undergone an operation, Sheriff Adan Mendoza of Santa Fe County said yesterday.

That may may shed some light on why the pair's beloved 12-year-old Australian Kelpie mix was found dead in a crate, only a few feet from Arakawa's body.

Police confirmed on Friday that Arakawa, 65, succumbed to Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS) in her bathroom somewhere around February 11.

That day, possibly hours before her death, Arakawa sent an email to her massage therapist before visiting a grocery store in the afternoon, The New York Times reported.

She was also caught on CCTV visiting a pharmacy where she was wearing a face mask, which friends said she often did to avoid transporting any illnesses to her medically vulnerable, older husband.

Arakawa also stopped at a local pet food store later the same afternoon before returning to her local area at approximately 5.15 pm, the sheriff said.

She did not respond to any emails after that day, leading police to believe that was the period in which she passed.

At some point after returning home, she began to decline rapidly. She eventually headed to the bathroom - her final resting place.

She was found lying on the floor with her head next to a space heater and thyroid medication pills scattered around her.

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Anonymous wrote:How many responses are from 50-60 years old with a 95 year old parent married to a loving wife in her 60s?

Why does the age of the parent’s spouse factor in with how often someone checks in with their own parent?

+1 seriously!

If the concern is genuinely that they might be dying, then if matters because they have someone else who is able to take care of them in the vast majority of circumstances. Whatever happened here is the outlier, not a normal experience for someone in their 60s.

DP.

Thank you for your very clinical response.

+1 unemotional and unfeeling. We often see and hear of people left alone in nursing homes with fewvor no family visits or calls. Very sad.

What’s sad is that they often are simply reaping what they’ve sown, but because they’re old, you assume they’re the neglected victims.

I only know how I would treat elderly parents and grandparents. No one in our extended family would die and remain on the floor with no one knowing an out the death for weeks. If you think keeping a distance and not contacting someone for weeks is appropriate for your family members, then so be it.

*But I'm in my 40s and honestly I guess I don't know how I'd truly act two decades from now. I'll check back when I'm 65 and my 95 year old absentee father has a wife my age.

If you love a parent, you stay in touch, regardless of the spouse's age. Maybe not every day but frequently. His daughter said he was doing pilates and yoga. No, he wasn't. She was out of touch. He was frail, thin, and either used his cane or leaned on his wife when they went out.

Check back when you're 65 and your 95 year old absentee father has a wife your age.

I don't need to check back. My father died at age 88.

If you had checked in more he could have lived to 95.

Thanks for your touching concern. He lived with my sister and her family.

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s perplexing. None of his kids said he had Alzheimer’s. I would think that would be discussed as his daughter did talk to the media. I also didn’t cancún doctors report noting that Gene Hackman had Alzheimer’s
because you would think he would have been taking the meds people take for this. How also
did she get Hanta virus? Is this something she was infected with after dead and laying on a floor? Can they tell the difference? I have more questions than before.

Anonymous wrote:My FIL is in his 90s. FIL has never shown much warmth towards us and has never gone out of his way for us. When they come to town, it's to visit his wife's family. They don't even bother to ping us to let us know they're in town. He didn't contribute a dime towards our house or other expenses, but you can be sure he and his wife have funded her DC's lifestyle. He has a lot of charm and is a lot of fun. He was a public figure in his day.

I expect if FIL or his wife find themselves needing help, they will call her DC. They wouldn't think of calling us. I've let them know they can call us if they need anything. We're a plane ride away, but closer than her DC or other siblings.

Does DH call his dad? He's hesitant to call.They don't have a relationship. Maybe DH could have tried harder, but he did put in an effort when he was younger, and it was not reciprocated. Like I said, they come to town, but don't bother letting us know they're here.

I think things get awkward when parents are married to a step-parent. The dynamic changes. I wouldn't dream of not contacting an elderly parent, but my parents were very different.

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Anonymous wrote:so bizarre my elderly family loves calls and visits but we are close.

your elderly parent married to someone in their 60s loves calls from 3 kids daily?

my mother loves calls and visits but she lives alone and is very dependent on my sister and me

My mother is older than Hackman and I don’t call her every day or every week. She’s busy and so am I. Get over your judgmental small minded selves.

So she could die, and you wouldn't know for a week?

DP, but so what? Mom is still dead regardless of whether you know the minute after it happens or a month later.

We don’t know whether he died instantly or died of dehydration after lying there for a few days, or similar.

+1 Exactly

But the dog and wife died too. All at the same time?

They ruled out monoxide and nat gas.

Poisoned? On purpose? And dog happened to eat it too?

It was a boulder.

See, I brought up the boulder theory back on page 2, and my post was deleted. Someone out there doesn't want us to know about the boulder problem out west.

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Anonymous wrote:How many responses are from 50-60 years old with a 95 year old parent married to a loving wife in her 60s?

Why does the age of the parent’s spouse factor in with how often someone checks in with their own parent?

I think a lot of these postets aren't close emotionally to their parents and just look for excuses to not be in frequent contact with them.

Anonymous wrote:I would be checking in on a 95 year old parent more often if he lived alone. That he had a younger wife/caretaker gives a sense of relief that he had company and they were busy living their lives, demonstrated in the photo of them going out to dinner.

Anonymous wrote:My husband calls his mother (dad died ten years ago) weekly. There’s 7 kids. They each take a day.
Would think they maybe could have done something like this.

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Anonymous wrote:They clearly wanted to live alone without any help, and they paid the price. What a sad story.

It was their choice. The ironic part is that their death got so much publicity despite their desire for privacy.

Anonymous wrote:Gene had 3 children although most on this thread seem to only mention his daughters. His son is 65, his youngest daughter is 59 and the other daughter is in between. He travelled a lot for work when the kids were growing up and separated from his first wife in the late 70s/early 80s, although they didn't offically divorce until 1986. I am not sure how much he was around the kids. He was living with Betsy by 1984 and with her until now so 40 years.

His kids would have been young adults and the same age as Betsy when she started dating Gene so likely they didn't have a really close relationship with her. His life was with Betsy for a very long time.

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Anonymous wrote:How many responses are from 50-60 years old with a 95 year old parent married to a loving wife in her 60s?

Why does the age of the parent’s spouse factor in with how often someone checks in with their own parent?

Anonymous wrote:Betsy died first from Hantavirus. She was in the bathroom getting her daily prescription when she was overcome, collapsed and expired.

Gene was in poor health plus Alzheimer's. With Betsy gone, he was not getting his daily meds. Subsequently he too expired several days later as his body couldn't function without the heart medications.

The poor dog in the crate expired from lack of water. It's interesting the two other dogs survived - but what were they eating and drinking? Perhaps there was a natural water source they had access to. If they were running at large, were they roaming throughout the neighborhood? How is it possible nobody thought that was strange? Were they always roaming? I would have to guess Betsy treated them like her babies, and they would not ordinarily be roaming at large.

Anonymous wrote:They clearly wanted to live alone without any help, and they paid the price. What a sad story.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How many responses are from 50-60 years old with a 95 year old parent married to a loving wife in her 60s?

Why does the age of the parent’s spouse factor in with how often someone checks in with their own parent?