These days you are hearing more and more about “elder law” and we use the term to describe our law practice.  But what is it and who does it describe?   Who are our clients?   The simple answer is that they are the elderly — by other names old folks, seniors, matriarchs, aged, experienced, mature, seniors, venerable and veterans.   I don't really think these descriptions are helpful.  In my view, my clients are survivors, lions, martyrs, courageous, defiant, indomitable, stalwart and undaunted.   

How else can you describe an 85 year old who still fiercely loves his wife and holds her hand at every meeting but can barely walk because of bone cancer he has fought for a year – a year!  He doesn’t believe in pain medication.  So he puts up with the pain and puts on a smile.   He never forgets to ask how I am doing and how I am feeling.  He always brings a new story about his life - a man who improves your day just by being in the office. 

What about the 79 year old impeccably beautiful wife who is trying to hold her life together as her husband struggles to break free of a ventilator in order to “graduate” to a nursing home?   We see numerous spouses whose vacation homes are now just a problem asset that must be disposed of rather than dreamed about.  Who are they again?  They are an endless stream of dashed hopes and broken dreams.  They have new partners: nurses, nursing homes, financial officers and social workers.   Their comfortable lives tragically and suddenly disrupted by the relentless onslaught of age and ill health.   They are in completely new circumstances trying to learn new rules.  They must adapt and conform and fight their fears while at the same time losing the love of their life.   They must do it when they don’t feel well themselves.   We have frequent visits from an 84 year old husband between dialysis treatments to fetch more paperwork for an unrelenting caseworker at the County Assistance Office.  Why didn’t he have receipts, they asked?   “Why would I need receipts, I was just living”, he replied.   “I didn’t think about a nursing home when I gave my son a wedding gift and my daughter a Christmas present.  Was I wrong about that?”  

They just want to be OK, to make it through to help their soul mate who now doesn’t recognize them.   My bone cancer friend said that “getting old is not for the faint of heart” and how true that is.   I see nothing but incredible bravery in the face of just overwhelming pressure and pain.  The funny thing is that not one of them asks why?   There is no self pity or feeling that life is unfair.  Not one of my “elders” has asked “why me?”  It is just a part of life, as surely as their school lives, careers, families, children, dreams, hopes, and fears.  

I see myself and what lies in my future.  That may be the scariest part of becoming so intertwined with these lives.  “We are all on the same conveyor belt” Bill Cosby supposedly said.   We sure are, but the road ahead on the belt sure seems shakier.    Down that belt seems fraught with pain, loss of control and loss of identity.  Someone else said that death is an issue that is most keenly felt by the middle aged.   I can tell you it is really felt by the middle aged lawyer working with the elderly.   Every day brings new circumstances and new pain and new families coping with the inconceivable.  

“Dad fell off a ladder. He was 85 and they say he will never leave the nursing home.  Why was he on that ladder cleaning out the gutters after dark!” a distraught wife and daughter recently reported.   I guess he never realized that anything could go wrong on a ladder in the dark.  The amazing thing was that he was the second eighty year old who fell off a ladder that very week!  Good metaphor for how we sometimes feel in an elder law practice - on a ladder in the dark.   The practice is always changing.  It is always under attack.   We are "hiding" money.   We are "cheating" the government.   The people who don't do this work but make ther rules never really get it.   My Client's do not care about the money, they care about losing everything of course, but by the time we get people in our office it is really about quality of care and quality of life.   They are barely able to handle the medical crisis and when you through the financial on top of that and all the rumors and falsehoods, it is quite overwhelming.   Much of this was brought on by politicians who implemented laws they didn't read, thinking they were stopping some abuse.  They don't realize that the abusers do not come to see lawyers.  The folks that see us need help, not ways of dumping their problems on the government.  The system is now so complex that lawyers are absolutely a necessity.  In the old days - before well meaning politicians plugged some loopholes, people could navigate the system themselves and not be blindsided by silly rules directed at abuses that never really amounted to that much to begin with.  Now, in Pennsylvania, if the parents mess up their finances, the kids have to pay for their medical expenses.  And how do they "mess up?"  By taking money out of ATM's.  By making Christmas gifts.   By paying for a grandchild's' wedding.   By throwing a four year old bank statement away.   The cost of implementing these rules have far outweighed the perceived benefits. 

Elder law attorneys do not hide money.   We get people from their homes to independent apartments or assisted living facilities.  These facilities often decide that whatever the parent has - belongs to the facility.   Complete disclosure is necessary even to get in.  Dad or mom HAS to have at least enough money to pay for three or four years of private pay.   If not, they are summarily rejected.  If they have enough money then you have to convince them to go.     It is never easy – for them or for their families.   We sometimes have to wait for mom or dad to have a “medical event” just enough to let their families intervene after a few days in the hospital.  We wait for a bed to open up at the “good home.”   Lying about one’s age has turned into lying about one’s County of residence to get into the best home in another County.   I assist our clients in their move from hospital to nursing home and eventually to the funeral home.   It really is a conveyor belt at that point. 

And in the face of this, we have people who trudge in and “bring the paperwork” sometimes for husbands who never had a nice word to say to them - ever.  Or for mothers who did nothing but berate and demean.  There are caretakers who stay when they shouldn’t.   These are the same caretakers who, because of the stress, are twice as likely to end up in a nursing home themselves.   If you are a 90 year old caretaker – what are your chances?   None of this is for the faint of heart.  That is for sure.   And who are they – they are you and they are me.  They are all of us. The 92 year old who asks every day why she was put in a place with so many “old” people.  A wife who wishes she hid the ladder.   A daughter who waits for a thank you from her mother.   This is elder law.   It is not for the faint of heart.