Trying to pay Bubby's bills, I ignited a civil war

I

t was quite by accident that I noticed the bank statement on my parents’ kitchen table that morning. I had dropped by to say hello and pick up a few things, and my mother insisted, as usual, that I sit down for a coffee. When I sat down at the table, my eyes fell on the paper from the bank that said something about a home-equity loan.

“What’s this loan for?” I asked my mother.

She stirred my coffee and handed it to me. “It’s to pay for Bubby’s aides, Meir,” she said.

My widowed, octogenarian grandmother had been in the hospital for the past three years. Mentally and physically incapacitated, she was hooked up to all sorts of machines and required round-the-clock care.

“You’re paying out of pocket for the aides?” I asked, puzzled.

She sat down at the table across from me. “No and yes,” she said. “When we created the trust for Bubby so that she’d be eligible for Medicaid, her house was divided among eight owners — Bubby and her seven children. The money I borrowed to pay for my share of the aide will eventually come off my share of the house, so I’m not really paying for it. The interest on the loan I’m paying out of pocket, but the way I see it, if I have money for a cleaning lady, then I can pay the interest on the loan for Bubby’s aides.”

I knew that the cost of Bubby’s aides was divided among my mother and four of her siblings. Two of the siblings, Uncle Hersh and Aunt Bruchi, felt that the aide was a waste of money. Bubby wasn’t lucid anyway, they argued, so what difference did it make who was taking care of her?

“I don’t get it,” I told my mother. “Bubby’s house is sitting empty. Why should you be borrowing money and paying interest to finance her private care when you could rent out the house and pay for it that way? It’s prime real estate!”