In the previous post I mentioned that we were going to fly my mother out to the Dallas area so she could spend Thanksgiving with my brother Miguel and I. She neve liked flying and it made her very anxious and she was really hemming and hawing about coming out. We decided not to push it and not to add any stress to her and agreed that it was best for her not to travel at that time.
What happened on Thanksgiving is again one of those story’s that are stranger than fiction as is most of what I have talked about in this blog. Irma spent Thanksgiving at my brother a Sam and Christina’s (The Financial Abusers) house. That evening my mother Irma fell and broke her leg on my brothers driveway. She was startled when my brother Sam opened the automatic side door to his van and she fell breaking her Femur. I always ask people when I tell this story, “What would you do if this happened to your 86 year old mother who suffers from Osteoporosis?” 100% of the responses have been either call 911 or take her to the hospital. That did not happen! She was in pain and they helped her back into their house and had her lay down on their couch for the evening!
We do not know or understand why they did not do the common sense and safe thing to take care of this emergency. The feeling we have is that it was an inconvenience and they couldn’t be bothered with dealing with the issue. If the injury had been more severe she could have died on that couch. I cannot imagine the pain she must have been in.
The next morning they finally decided to take her to the emergency room where they found out she had broken her leg. Sam called my brother Miguel who was visiting me in Dallas and explained what had happened. We were in such utter shock and disbelief at his utter shallow disregard to our mothers well being. I wish I would of thought to ask her why she wasn’t taken to the hospital that night.
The next day Irma had surgery to repair her leg and when she had recovered enough she was sent to a rehab facility for physical therapy. There was no way that she would be going back to her apartment as it was up a flight of stairs and really needed to go somewhere where she could be taken care of. She did not have the insurance to go to a proper facility and we couldn’t afford to put her up in one. She had cancelled her long term disability which would have covered her to be in a facility. She cancelled it because all of her money was being taken by Sam and Christina. Irma was going to have to stay with Sam and Christina as she had nowhere else to go. We were not comfortable with this but it was what needed to happen.
In true form and in an attempt to try to get money, Sam called my brother Miguel asking if he could have $400 (from my mothers bank account) to get a mattress topper from Costco. He said he needed it for the futon my mother was going to be sleeping on. At one point in my career I had worked for a bedding company and knew that a topper did not cost this much as a matter of fact you could buy a whole mattress set for that amount. We told him to get the mattress from my mothers apartment as it was the same size as the futon. He refused to do that as it would be an inconvenience to him, it turns out the mattress topper he was wanting to get was just under $100 at Costco. We could not believe the lengths Sam would go to to try to get money from his injured and frail mother.
Irma started to improve and was going to physical therapy and was getting around with a walker. What we discovered and happened in the next two months rocked our world and to this day we are in disbelief of the depths of what our Elder Abuser brother Sam Hornedo did along with his wife and it even turned out that he had gotten his kids involved in the abuse.
Elder financial exploitation
Christina answered the phone and I asked if she had a few minutes to talk. She said, “I need to take my youngest daughter to the doctor.” I asked if everything was okay with her and after she told me what was going on and I asked her to call me back later when she had some time to talk. At this point she asked, “What’s this about?” I started by stating that “Something had been discovered and out of respect for her, I wanted to give her the courtesy of having the conversation, wife-to-wife.” She pressed and asked, “What’s going on?” so I said, “It’s come to light that Sam has been taking money from Irma.” Christina: “What are you talking about?” Defensively, she pushes back “Why is it any of your business?!?!” More a statement than a question. I said, “Well it became our business when Irma called us freaking out because she didn’t have enough money for her [$540] rent payment, and we had to send her $1,500 to bail her out because of the money Sam had taken from her.”
So, Christina doesn’t think it should be any of our business. I then said, “Would it surprise you if I told you it was $5,000 this past year?” She replied, “That’s between her and Sam”. So, I said “What about “$10,000?” She replied, “I don’t know, again if she gives us money that her prerogative and again I just don’t see why this is any of your business?” I replied “Again, you guys made it our business when she couldn’t cover her bills because she was giving you her money. And actually, just what we’ve found from this past year alone, is $16,000 …between clearing everything out of Irma’s bank account plus approximately $3,000 in overdraft Loans and Fees! Now she has no money to pay her bills and you’ve left Irma in a position needing to call Elwin and Miguel to pay for her expenses, so yeah, it’s our business now.”
…. And then here comes the justification: “Well, we’re here and we take care of her.” which is pretty ironic coming from Christina because Irma had always told us, her friends, and other family that they never came around much (except for the holidays and birthdays, or whenever Irma went to their place because they used her as a built-in babysitter). We later found out from Irma that Sam would come around at least once a month to get money, not to visit, not to help her out with appointments or just visit. At that point, I mentioned about Irma’s Diminished Capacity she said that they had noticed that for the last few years (soooo…. you continued to take advantage of someone when you knew she was experiencing diminished mental capacity?). At that point, Christina said “Look, I have to take my daughter to the doctor, I can’t deal with this right now.” I said, “That’s fine I just wanted to give you the courtesy of having this conversation, so you wouldn’t be blindsided.” (which clearly shouldn’t have been a concern on our part since she knew about getting money from Irma all along!). End of call.
Facts and Premonitions
It took a long time for me to figure out that it is less stressful to be prepared for the inevitable emergencies that life will throw your way. By putting a little bit aside at a time (and sometimes, it was less than $10) and having some or all of the money when those emergencies arose, reduces a lot of stress. Not long after we’d gotten ourselves on the TMM program, due to needing mold-remediation in our home plus catastrophic illness in the family, we were on payment plans with almost every hospital in the city as well as with many specialists for at least another seven plus years. Still, we had to take care of our bills because no one was going to do it for us. It’s called being accountable for one’s actions and not being the victim to life’s circumstances. This didn’t make us experts at budgeting or financially stable overnight. We’ve lived month-to-month for almost all our adult lives, while rectifying our past mistakes, on top of handling many bumps in our road in life. But the point is, we’ve handled our own bumps.
In fact, Sam had actually been spinning lies to Irma about Elwin and Mickey, which was incredibly upsetting to her, causing her to be unable to eat little for days on end, getting horrible acid reflux, and causing her significant emotional upset. He’d put on the faux waterworks and whined to Irma “Elwin and Mickey don’t love me…. they’re excluding me and won’t talk to me, etc.” (What? Are we five?). These were blatant lies as we have the texts, emails and phone calls to prove it. In the long run, Sam created so much havoc and stress, causing Irma significant distress resulting in her having increased incidences of unresolved acid indigestion and driving her to tears. Knowing what we know now, I can’t help but wonder if he isn’t at least indirectly responsible for her needing a feeding tube to be put in because of the damage to her stomach caused by the long-term exposure to the additional acid. I realize that is speculation, and yes, maybe a bit inflammatory. I’m not saying he killed her outright, but it is my opinion Sam & Christina both, significantly contributed to creating emotional and physical distress for her over the years.
Like I have said in prior posts, I called
Financial Elder Abuse 