What do you do when your mother has Alzheimer’s but no longer has a valid ID of any sort? Her driver’s license and passport have long expired and her official paperwork is scattered to who knows where. She hides things and in her paranoia has hidden her citizenship papers, which are a key component for a person not born in the U.S. getting an ID.

Connecticut requires at least five different documents to obtain a Real ID. Honestly, I doubt she’ll get on a plane ever again, nor does she need to go to the bank. The problem is that her new doctor’s office requires a picture ID and I’m not sure we can dig one up. We also need to get another person onto the bank account, me or one of my sisters, so that we can write checks if something happens to dad. I should say when, not if, because that’s an inevitability. That requires an official ID at the bank, something that verifies who she is, so one of us can be added as a signatory.

I suppose the other option is to have her verified as incompetent to make decisions and secure a power of attorney. However, first, that requires something from a medical professional confirming that, indeed, she has Alzheimer’s, but she needs a picture ID to get a foot in the door. So it all circles ‘round.

I’ve made an appointment for her at the Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles, which is where she’d get a Real ID. I’m not looking forward to the experience. While I’m grateful that you can make an appointment for renewing a license or get an ID so you don’t have to stand in line until doomsday, I don’t know how she’ll be when we go, if her required paperwork can be located, or if we can order replacements and get them in time. Sometimes she balks at leaving the house. I’ve started laying the groundwork by telling her she needs an ID and if it’s repeated often enough, it might begin to seep in and stick. Unlikely. She could refuse to get in the car to go to the DMV on the very day of the appointment. 

Assuming we can get her there, under COVID-19 rules I don’t know if the DMV will allow me to go in with her since she clearly cannot go by herself. My sister has an appointment a week earlier than mine, so she can ask about the rules. I can’t imagine calling the DMV. It would be like calling one of Dante’s Circles of Hell. The Vestibule of the Futile, for example.

What irritates me about this whole fiasco is my father has ignored the issue for over a year. My sisters and I have urged him to take care of it, but he hasn’t done a thing about it. It’s left up to us, who work full-time and in the case of one sister lives a hundred miles away, to resolve the issue. 

Lest it be said that he can’t figure it out or doesn’t have the capacity to manage it, he manages to do the things that are important to him. He can organize his own wants and needs, but when it comes to mom, he appears powerless.

I feel like Sisyphus.

He’s living in a fictional past where everyone knew one another and everyone made handshake deals. That documentation wasn’t required to go to the bank or get on a plane. And that’s true as far as it goes. Forty years ago you didn’t need a picture ID at the bank you had been using forever. You only needed a passport to get on a plane going overseas. You didn’t necessarily need a picture ID to get on a domestic flight. But the world isn’t the same place.

That hasn’t ever been a reality in terms of estate planning and he knows that in a rational way. He’s had to take care of the estates of at least two cousins who have died and knows the legal documentation necessary to smooth the way, but it’s like he doesn’t think it pertains to him.

He is powerless to organize anything that requires a modicum of effort, like retrieving documentation to get his legal affairs in order. He needs a new Will. He needs to grant one of us Power of Attorney. He needs to designate an Executor. He needs to sign a HIPAA. Etc., etc. It doesn’t really matter which one of us is designated for these roles; we consult with each other all the time. But it needs to be done legally or we are stuck with the inevitable issues of legal uncertainties if he dies tomorrow.

There isn’t much in the way of assets, although there is debt. We are not going to be the beneficiaries of much, if anything, when my parents pass. That’s okay. I think I can speak for my siblings when I say we’ve never expected anything. However, we’d like to have legal documents in order and have decisions made before things go seriously south. 

I feel like Sisyphus. You know. The guy from mythology who is doomed to roll a rock up a hill and then have it roll down only to have to roll it back up for eternity? We go around and around in an excess of futility because my father won’t do the necessary work. We have to push him and as a result, become viewed as harpies. We’re the bad guys.

You can’t win this fight. You can only endure.