Big Adult Decisions

I'm heading to Dallas for the coming Thanksgiving weekend but this is not the "over-the-river-and thru-the-woods" sort of Holiday scene coming up.

As noted previously my father is 86 and his wife (my step-mom but I've never thought of her in that way as she married my father after I left home) are both struggling with the waning years of their lives.

My father is in pretty fair shape but at 86 that is relative. He has a very bad back and fought cancer twice, two heart attacks so he's had his share of physical troubles. His wife just had a hip replacement due to a break. The bigger issue here is her advancing Alzheimers (or dementia - I confess I don't know the medical or psychological difference between the two) which is making care for her difficult.

So her oldest son (about my age) and I plan to get together and see what we can do to help. I can't say I know what my father is feeling but I can guess. He's coming (or not) to grips with the loss of independence. Realizing he can no longer physically or emotionally care for his wife of some 30 years. But like so many of us, he's in some stage of denial about her condition, his own physical limits and making the hard, very hard choices about what to do next.

I've never been nervous about a visit home before but I don't exactly know what to do or say. I don't have any great answers for this one. I may have some OK ideas but how do you know when it is time to tell your father, "Dad, I/we insist that you ..." and put some teeth or muscle behind that and make some things happen. How do you know when it is finally time to step completely out from under his authority and turn-the-tables so to speak and begin telling him what to do?

I don't know where the book is that tells you how to handle these types of situations. And Thanksgiving is not supposed to be the time to do this sort of thing. I just know this is what I'm supposed to do - Go. And then when I get there hopefully I'll find some answers.

Thanks for any guidance and of course your prayers.