Neighbor to the East, aka more about Day 7

On our walk Sunday morning, the neighbor to the North was standing outside pondering an Alder that had given it up, and was tidily hung up in a fir and madrona. She didn’t look great. A little jaundiced through her dark completion. She has to see her cardiologist this week for a couple of leaky valves. We had a good conversation, and resumed our stroll.

Later that afternoon, Chloe and I visited our neighbor to the East. She wanted to show Chloe her studio. We sat in the living room talking about how the North neighbor seemed to be getting along and I said, “I sure hope they have their estate docs in order.” Our neighbor to the East is a retired attorney, and is working part time for the Island’s family help center. She commented that there were no attorneys on the Island that could provide that sort of service. We ticked off the lawyers we knew. She got to the lawyer that represented mom in the driver’s license debacle, and I said, “Well, she’s disreputable.” Our Eastern friend jumped at me.

She demanded to know what I meant. In a nut shell:

• Me: The attorney knew my mother had dementia and represented her anyway.
• Neighbor (at a low screech): How?? How did she know?
• Me: When the attorney called me to discuss what was happening, she warned me that anything I said to her, she could share with my mother. So I asked her if she had children. She did. I asked if that child walked to school. The child did. I strongly suggested that for her child’s safety, and others, she may want to reconsider strongly representing my mother. The attorney had to communicate with mom via phone message, letter, and email to make sure mom received instruction follow ups, and reminders, often multiple times about the same thing. I read every email mom received. Further, when the attorney had mom go in for a psych eval, she didn’t use it because of the Findings. And mom got in an accident the day after she got her license back.
• Neighbor: The accident is not the attorney’s fault.
• Me: True.
• Neighbor (still sounding pissed): This is all old news, water under the bridge. We’re not talking about it any longer!

There was a lot of interjected pushback from my neighbor as I made my points as to why mom’s attorney knew mom had dementia. I was completely taken aback. We went out to the studio, where it was like the conversation hadn’t happened.

Chloe pointed out to me later that the neighbor is collecting her own car damage. This is true, and she self-reports on it, where as my mom would return home and wash her minivan, somehow thinking that would hide signs of hitting someone or something. Maybe she the reason she got so defensive was simply because of my opinion of a colleague. This neighbor is usually up for different points of view with out the conversation getting tense.