One Grandmother's Story: When Denial Causes Crisis
By: Source: AARP.org Date Posted: 2004-05-25 16:28:00-04:00
When her daughter, Wendy, died in May 2002, Nita Stephenson was left with an ailing grandson and without any valid legal documentation of her daughter's wishes. After a deathbed discussion with her sick daughter, a single parent, Nita, now 58, knew her daughter wanted her to have guardianship of her teenage grandson. And initially, she thought that was enough.
She had her daughter's "Five Wishes" as documented in a form provided by the hospital, and she created a notarized document naming herself as legal guardian, which was signed by the biological father.
"I thought a piece of paper that's signed and notarized was perfectly good until I went to DFS (the Wyoming Department of Family Services) and the school and everywhere else I had to go," Stephenson admits.
She was told again and again she would have to engage an attorney and have official paperwork drawn up. Fortunately, most agencies were willing to temporarily accept the notarized document.
"It's pretty much like a runaround—you can't apply to services until you have guardianship, you can't get guardianship until you've consulted with and paid for an attorney. Well what if you don't have an attorney or can't afford an attorney? Their services cost money up-front," Stephenson questions.
Obtaining guardianship took several months and adding salt to the wound, the process cost nearly $1,000 in attorney's fees. Having never required legal services previously, Stephenson approached an attorney friend who took months drawing up her paperwork. It was nearly a year before she had everything straightened out with all of the different agencies providing assistance to her grandson.
"I wasn't directed towards any federal or state financial assistance or any type of assistance—that's the crazy thing—you don't know where to go and no one's telling you anything about where to go or what to do, except 'Get an attorney'. It shouldn't have been that hard, but I didn't know a better way to do it," Stephenson explains.
She added that, while not official, her notarized self-created guardianship paper was the best thing for the interim.
"I had to have something done then—it was the day after the funeral," Stephenson said. "If you can't get guardianship papers drawn up in advance then what I did is better than nothing."
Wendy had decided that she wanted her mother to be Ricky's legal guardian and make all Ricky's medical decisions, while Ricky would actually live with her sister, Mandy (Stephenson's other daughter), and her husband. Just as his mother did, Ricky suffers from the incurable disease, Neurofibromatosis, which causes tumors to grow on the nerves.
"As guardian, I'm totally responsible for making all of Ricky's medical decisions—previously my daughter handled the… hard decisions," Stephenson explains. "[Going through this] is pretty stressful at this age."
The grandchild will also most likely be experiencing significant stress and grief over their loss as well as any other changes, such as being moved away from a familiar school and friends.
Stephenson suggests counseling. It is almost always less than ideal circumstances that bring these children into their grandparents' care (i.e., death, abandonment, irresponsibility or mistreatment).
"What people like me need is a 'starting point'—then you'll know how to do it right rather than guess (like I did), especially when you have a funeral to plan and all these other things on your mind," Stephenson says.
In retrospect, she wishes she had looked into the process ahead of time, but explains, "We were all in denial (about Wendy)."
The obvious conclusion: Wyoming grandparents need reliable referrals to affordable guardianship legal services as well as other supportive services.
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