Talk with Your Children
Your children may be as reluctant as your parents are to discuss your plans for long-term care and end-of-life issues, but if you can even just begin to open the lines of communication about these issues, you'll make it easier down the line.
Use opportunities as they arise with your parents and in-laws to discuss uncomfortable subjects. For example, if your father's Alzheimer's has progressed to a point where he no longer knows who you are, he may still recognize your mother most of the time but gets very confused when you come around. Perhaps he thinks you are your mother. This can happen especially if you look a lot like she did at your age. His mind isn't capable of understanding how your mother is now two people.
When you aren't there, he still knows her, but he is very difficult and often disagreeable. He hasn't become combative or dangerous, but he wears your mother out. Take the opportunity to discuss with your children how you feel about the fact that you may soon have to place your father in a nursing home for everyone's best interest. Perhaps you have guilt about this or your own fears of being in a nursing home without familiar surroundings.
You should also discuss what you would want your family to do if this happens to you. Perhaps you wouldn't want your husband to have to care for you for so long before placing you in a nursing home. Maybe your mother is exhausted and her own health is being jeopardized, but she's stubborn and wants to keep your father at home with her.
Perhaps you would want your children to be more persuasive with your husband if this happens to you, or maybe you are certain he would be less inclined to care for you and you don't want anyone to feel guilty or to place blame.
These are not easy times, and the subject of caring for anyone who is growing old or becoming incapacitated is not a pleasant topic of conversation, but think of how things could be better for your situation if you had had the opportunity to share your thoughts with your father before he got to this point.
Another point to make with your children is to get them to understand they all share in the responsibilities for your family. They need to be there for each other; no one should have to do it alone, and they all need to be involved. Perhaps they will all be better prepared to partake in whatever care is needed and not overburden any of their siblings.
