Elder abuse is not often on the forefront of our minds. When we are younger we can't wait until we are older, but rarely do we think about the crime of elder abuse. I am now 60 years old and to be honest I never gave it a second thought. Last November I was slapped across the face with thoughts of elder neglect when I was standing in the doorway of the Geisinger Hospital in Wilkes Barre, PA.
My mother who is 85 was in the hospital with complaints that she could not breathe. She suffers from COPD and requires oxygen, but for the most part refuses to use it until she is in distress, Anyway, as my sister Robyn Kochan and I were standing in the hospital's doorway I turned to her and said "We need to do something for your mother, I just found out that she is without heat." Without even a second thought she shot back "What do yo want to do... Send her to a nursing home and break her heart or let her live where she is happy and if she freezes to death at least she will die naturally."
Somehow the words "Freezing" and dying naturally just don't belong in the same sentence, but to my sister those words go together as smoothly as peanut butter and jelly. This is what was to become my introduxtion to Elder Abuse in Luzerne County.
A few days later my mother was released and could go home just in time for Thanksgiving. My sister and her husband went out of town to visit relatives while my mother stayed at her apartment and I at mine due to the weather,
On Friday, my mother called and was very upset she asked it she could stay at my house because someone was trying to kill her. Who?, I asked. She said that she didn't know, but she could hear them trying to get in at her late at night. I said, Yes, hwever she would have to call my sister for a ride at night as I no longer drive at night.
My sister brought her, but was pissed off because my mother ruined her evening. It was going to be a very interesting evening.
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Interesting that the author never bothered to mention that he had his mother wrongfully committed to the psych ward of which the judge deemed she was mentally fit and released, only to have this same "loving son" then commit his mother to a lock-down alzheimer's ward when she did not have alzheimer's. Presumably this is exactly what he means by "Elder Abuse and Neglect means I love you" because he sold most of his mother's possessions while he had her in lock down, and then kept the money for himself and rarely made any effort to visit her once he had her slammed into a facility where she did not want to go. Of course, this is the type of love he showed his father when he also had him illegally committed so he could take possession of his father's home by forging his signature. There are three sides to every story. This one reeks of a venomous love. The deceased parents have their own stories to tell.
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