The Aunts Honey, Act 4

Be careful what you wish for....you just may get it

As the years passed, the Aunts aged. Sadly for us, they never mellowed. When I'd married my husband, Aunt Honey the First had already had heart surgery once. Living with Honey the Second always was a strain for her. To give herself a break, she'd fake some kind of heart issue to get herself admitted to the hospital.  It was just my luck that she always chose the hospital I worked at.  Why?  There were plenty of other places to go!  When the doctors could find nothing, they'd prepare to send her home. This is when I'd get a call to go see her and try, in some way, to get her stay in the resort hospital extended. For her, it was a vacation and of course, a way to garner sympathy from the clan. I'd visit, speak with the docs (who'd always offer sympathy that I was related to this woman) and try to calm Aunt Honey down. Typically, the docs would say, "Jesus, you're related to her?" At this point in the conversation, they would tell me Aunt Honey the First had assaulted them in some way when they told her she had to go home (she'd throw something from her bedside table at the bearer of bad tidings.) Being a lowly staff nurse, I don't know what kind of magical powers she thought I had.  It's not like I had afternoon tea with the CEO, for God's sake, I was too busy emptying bedpans!  I'm certain when they'd discharge her anyway, she thought I'd failed her.

Aunt Honey the Second, never the sharpest tool in the shed, had become senile. She also began to wet herself and her bed. This was such a strain on her sister. They owned their home together and had very little in terms of assets to provide long term care for a person with dementia. Medicare doesn't pay for this kind of stuff and she didn't qualify for Medicaid. For that, you have to deplete your assets (that would be the home they shared.) They were like an old married couple who had failed to look ahead. None of the other siblings wanted to take in a bed-wetter although, Mr. Larger Than Life had halfheartedly offered to take her in once or twice. His wife, God rest her soul, stood up for herself and adamantly refused.

Time continued to pass and the bed wetting became more routine. So did Aunt Honey the First's list of maladies and hospitalizations. It wasn't unusual to get a call a month that she was hospitalized due to chest pain. Her lab work and other tests never panned out and she was routinely bounced from her hospital bed within a day. She became the boy who cried wolf.

After one such hospitalization, a cousin dropped in to visit the two Aunts. Aunt Honey the Second was in her bed, soaked in urine. Aunt Honey the First was beside herself. She began to scream at our cousin, "I can't take this anymore!" "I don't know what I'll do if she doesn't stop pissing in the bed!" She was on a tirade which ended with, "I wish God would strike me dead!" 

And he did. Right then and there.

Throughout my life, I've looked for signs that there is a God. This was affirmation at its best. Aunt Honey the First had suffered a massive myocardial infarction moments after asking God to strike her dead. Massive. I can only imagine how high her blood pressure had to have been, during the peak of her tirade, to blow out a vessel like this!  And I don't know why our cousin panicked and called 911, but she did-just saying, God's will and all.  After all, wasn't it what she'd asked for?  Despite medicine's interference, Aunt Honey only survived a day; Aunt Evil had her removed from life support so she wouldn't suffer. I always wondered about this because I think Evil knew she and her kids would be the beneficiaries of the sisters' estate. With Honey the Second, too feeble now to fight for her rights, Aunt Evil would finally be able to redecorate her home.

The funeral was pretty sedate for an Arabic event. No one tried to claw their way into the casket. There was no caterwauling and few tears. She'd worn us all out. Aunt Honey the Second, now a dotard, just sat quietly and sadly bobbed her head. At the meal following the funeral, her surviving siblings screamed at her for not eating any food.  They weren't consoling in the least, this poor thing had just lost her life partner.  They may not have been married, but they were partners in crime their whole lives.  This is one group of people you don't want to upset by not eating their food.  Incidentally, there was no Arabic food served at this most auspicious of events.  None.

The big issue was what to do about Aunt Honey the Second. She was too demented to care for herself and no one else could manage a bed wetter. Aunt Evil had tried placing her in a nursing home. She immediately applied for medicaid on behalf of her sister and for herself, began to make a list of modifications she wanted to do to her own home with the money earned from the sale of her sisters' estates. I kept telling Mr. Larger Than Life that this would not be allowed. Under law, it's illegal to divest a dotard of their assets.  I told him the nursing home had first dibs on her estate.  I was dismissed because obviously, I didn't know what I was talking about.  Aunt Evil, undeterred, went ahead with her dream list.  She hired contractors to start planning her dream kitchen.  The shit hit the fan when it became clear that the law did indeed protect Aunt Honey the Second's money. Evil, trying desperately to preserve her home makeover plans, tried to care for her sister in her home but was hard pressed to care for such a prolific bed wetter. In defeat, Evil threw in the towel (and sheets), along with the dream kitchen  and admitted her sister to just about the worst nursing home in the area.

With her mind completely gone now and no worries at all, Aunt Honey the Second survived several more years, all in a nursing home. To Aunt Evil's chagrin, she survived long enough to completely deplete her estate and finally qualify for medicaid. Evil never did get to redecorate.