Mary Ellen Bendtsen:

Mary Ellen Bendtsen, If you have some time, sit down and read this amazing series of stories from The Dallas Morning News concerning a faded, Norma Desmond-ish Southern belle and the fate of her decaying mansion. A pair of grifters ingratiated themselves with her, and coerced her into signing the house over to them (watch the video of the dastardly duo and their lawyer “encouraging” the demented old woman on her deathbed into putting her signature on legal papers handing it all over to “the boys”). I swear, this story is straight-up Southern Gothic, worthy of a Hollywood treatment.

But the problem at its heart is not so unusual, alas. It’s about how difficult it is to protect elderly parents or other relatives from those who would exploit them. The diva’s grown daughter lived halfway across the country, and by the time she moved back to Dallas to try to look after her mother’s affairs, the clever duo had already cast a spell over the old lady. And it’s also true that given the emotional dynamics of families, there’s only so much a child can do.

In this sad case, the adult daughter probably could have sued to have her mother declared legally incompetent, and been awarded power of attorney. But that’s a risky strategy, because even if the court were to grant it, the child — even though acting to protect the senile parent — would likely alienate her parent’s affection permanently. In fact, it was precisely the fear of that outcome as my late grandfather was in decline that kept my father, his son, from petitioning the court to have him declared incompetent, so my dad could step in and protect his assets from his second wife, who had stolen tens of thousands from him.

My dad couldn’t bring himself to humiliate his father by having the old man declared incompetent, and he really couldn’t bear the thought of having his own father despise him for as long as the old man had left to live.