Grieving the Death of Elderly Parents by Lisa Braxton
Today, I'm honored to have Lisa Braxton on my blog as a guest. Her book DANCING BETWEEN THE RAINDROPS is on tour with WOW! Women on Writing. Make sure you check out her book and come on back to read her post. I was blessed to have my parents for a long time. Mom was 83 when she passed away. Two years later, a week after we had celebrated Dad’s 90th birthday, he died. I miss my parents. I loved them deeply and think about them every day. But sometimes my grieving is crowded out by memories of the stress I endured, trying to no avail to get them to take care of their estate planning. At times it was crushing. Mom and Dad had a traditional 1950s marriage. Mom was 18 when they married. Dad was 22. Dad had the last word on most decisions. Mom didn’t always like it, but she swallowed hard and accepted the majority of his decisions. That fragile balance seemed to work for decades. Long before they became frail and elderly, when they were middle-aged, I encouraged them to do their estate