The Conversation Nobody Has
Gail noticed it while they were clearing the table. Her mom, Joan, picked up the gravy boat, carried it to the cupboard where it had lived for forty years, and stopped. She stood there holding it, looking at the shelves, and then asked Gail where it went.
It was a small thing. Joan laughed it off, and Gail laughed with her. But on the drive home, Gail kept coming back to the conversation she’d been meaning to have with her mom for about three years. Who would look after the banking if something happened? Who would talk to the doctors? Did her mom even have a power of attorney, and if she did, where was it?
Gail didn’t ask that night. Most of us don’t.
Why the long weekend comes and goes
Thanksgiving is just around the corner. Families are in the same room, sometimes for the first time in months. You’d think it would be the natural moment to talk about what happens if mom or dad can’t manage on their own anymore.
But that conversation almost never happens. Nobody wants to be the person who brings up dementia between the turkey and the pumpkin pie. Parents don’t want their children thinking they’re slipping. Adult children don’t want their parents thinking they’re circling. So everyone stays silent, and the conversation gets pushed to another time down the road.
That other time usually arrives on its own schedule and without warning. It comes as a phone call from the hospital, a fall on the basement stairs, or a stroke that changes a family’s life in an afternoon. The conversation still has to happen, only now it happens in a waiting room, with a doctor asking who’s making decisions and nobody quite sure of the answer.
Having a will and naming an executor are important, and I talk about them often. But a will only comes into play after you die. While you’re alive, it’s more likely that your health, or your ability to manage your own affairs, will become the issue, whether through a stroke, a fall or dementia. The documents that let someone act for you during that time are the ones families most often haven’t put in place.
Why it’s easier when everyone’s well
A conversation about incapacity flows very differently when nobody’s incapacitated. Your parent gets to lead it. They can tell you who they want to handle their money, what kind of care they’d want, and exactly what they wouldn’t want. They can take their time, change their mind, and then see a lawyer or notary to put it in writing.
In a crisis, none of that is available. Signing a power of attorney requires the person to have the mental capacity to understand what they’re signing. Once that capacity is gone, they can’t sign one. The family then has to apply to court or go through a government process to get the legal authority to act, which takes time and money, and the person appointed may not be the one your parent would have chosen. I wrote more about this in Before the Window Closes: Cognitive Decline and the Cost of Waiting.
The Bank Said “No”
Brian had been helping his father with groceries and appointments for over a year when his dad had a stroke. The bills kept coming, and Brian assumed that as the son who’d been doing everything, he could step in and pay them. But the bank told him he had no authority on his father’s accounts. His dad could no longer sign a power of attorney, so Brian spent months applying through the courts to be appointed, while payments fell behind.
What the conversation needs to cover
You don’t need a script, and you don’t need to cover everything in one sitting. Three questions do most of the work.
Who handles your money if you can’t? A power of attorney names someone to manage your finances: paying bills, dealing with the bank, looking after investments, filing taxes, etc. For it to keep working after you’ve lost capacity, it has to be written to continue through incapacity. Depending on where you live, it may be called an enduring or a continuing power of attorney, and the rules for setting one up vary across the provinces and territories. A joint bank account isn’t a substitute. It may let someone pay bills from that one account, but it gives them no authority over anything else, and it can create its own problems for the estate later.
Who makes your healthcare decisions? This is a separate document, and its name also changes depending on where you live. You might see it called a personal directive, a health care directive, a power of attorney for personal care or a representation agreement. Whatever it’s called where you live, it names the person who decides about treatment, where you live and your day-to-day care, and it can record your wishes so that person isn’t left guessing.
Some provinces have a default list of relatives who can make healthcare decisions when nobody’s been named. That isn’t the same as someone you chose, who knows what you want. And if family members disagree about who’s next on that list, or about what mom would have wanted, the disagreements start at the worst possible time.
Where are the documents? A power of attorney in a drawer nobody knows about can’t help anyone. Ask where the originals are kept, who the lawyer or notary was, and whether the people named have copies or even know they’ve been named. Ask when the documents were signed, too. One written thirty years ago may name someone who has since died, moved away, or isn’t the right person anymore.
What changes depends on where you live
Every province and territory has its own laws for these documents. The names are different, the rules for who can witness them are different, and so are the steps that have to be followed for a document to be valid. A document that wasn’t signed properly may not be accepted when it’s finally needed.
Some of the differences go further than the name. In Quebec, for example, the document is called a protection mandate, and it doesn’t take effect just because someone loses capacity. It has to be formally confirmed through a process called homologation before the person named can act on it.
Before you or your parent sign anything, these are good questions to bring to a lawyer or notary where you live:
- What are these documents called here?
- Does the power of attorney take effect right away, or only if I lose capacity?
- Who’s allowed to witness it?
- If I move to another province, will it still be recognized?
If you’d like to think through these decisions before you sit down with a lawyer or notary, Who Speaks for You?™ helps you work out who should handle your finances, and Your Voice Your Care™ helps you put your healthcare wishes into words. If you’re ready to think through both at the same time, In Good Hands™ brings them together in a single purchase. Each tool is jurisdiction-specific, self-guided, and designed to be worked through at your own pace.
How to actually start
You don’t need to call a family meeting or hand out an agenda. Some of the easiest openings come from doing your own planning. “I’ve been getting my own power of attorney sorted out, and it made me wonder whether you’ve done yours.” That puts you on the same side of the table as your parent instead of across from them.
Others come from someone else’s experience. A friend whose dad had a stroke. A neighbour who couldn’t get into her husband’s accounts. Most families already have one of those stories, and it gives you a reason to ask that has nothing to do with your parent forgetting where the gravy boat goes.
If your parent brushes it off, let it go for the day. You’ve raised it, and you can come back to it at the next holiday gathering or on a quiet Sunday visit. Nothing needs to be signed by Monday.
And if you’re the parent reading this, you can start it yourself. Telling your children who you’ve named for your finances, who you’ve named for your healthcare, and why, spares them from guessing later, and often from arguing about it.
Ten Minutes Over Pie
Heather’s dad brought it up himself at Thanksgiving, once everyone had finished dinner and the pie was being served. He’d updated his documents that spring and wanted his three kids to know who was named and where everything was. It took about ten minutes. Two years later, when he was hospitalized after a fall and couldn’t communicate, Heather already knew she was making his healthcare decisions, her brother knew he had the finances, and the papers were in the filing cabinet where their dad said they’d be. Nobody had to argue about what he would have wanted, because he’d already told them.
Back at the table
Gail called her mom the following weekend. She didn’t mention the gravy boat. She said she’d been thinking about her own planning and asked whether her mom had ever done a power of attorney.
Her mom was quiet for a second, and then said she’d been hoping one of the kids would ask.
If there’s someone at your table this year you’ve been meaning to ask, this might be the weekend.
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Disclaimer: This content is for general information only and is not legal, financial, medical, or tax advice.
