So sorry, Skittles.

Prayers for your mom, skittles. Hang in there and take care of yourself too.

Thanks. I live 4 hours away now so I don't see her; however I talk to her every day. She keeps saying she wants to go in her sleep. One of the shots they are giving her now (Coumadin) goes in her stomach. She doesn't feel good, can't get around by herself, and is a human pincushion. She is going back to rehab tomorrow so hopefully she'll get stronger and can go back home - and can start taking the pill form of Coumadin.

Hopefully she'll be feeling better and home soon.

It's been almost a year since we moved my mom into an assisted living facility. She didn't like the first one. Fortunately she gave up on the idea of moving back into an independent apartment and is now in a facility that she likes better.

We've been worried for several months about my 87 year old grandma driving. She's had little things like backing into another vehicle, forgetting to hit the brake, leaving the car running, etc., that have caused us to really want to forbid her from anymore driving. Knowing that this would take away a lot of her independence, we had not done that yet. However, yesterday, while on her way to the cemetery to visit grandpa's grave and take him some flowers for Valentine's Day, she ran a stop sign and t-boned another vehicle. Fortunately, the injuries to her and the other driver are not life threatening. Both vehicles were totaled and we will not be surprised if the authorities revoke her license.

We are so glad that she is okay (other than some bruising) but we told her if the authorities don't take her license, that we are making that decision as a family and she's no longer allowed to drive. She started to get emotional and asked if she can still drive to church and the grocery store. My mom told her no and that we (the family that lives in town) will take her everywhere she needs to go. Such a hard thing to do, but at this point, it's no longer an option. It could have been so much worse yesterday and we don't want to see that happen.

That is a very difficult thing to do, Busy; however your family made the right decision. That is one of the hardest things to do - tell a parent (or grandparent) that they are no longer allowed to drive.

It is AWFUL. I had to do this with my Aunt...it was heartbreaking and I felt like the meanest person on the planet at the time...but it had to be done...for her sake and everyone else out there.

I agree RR Joker, we had to do that with my FIL after her hit a lady who had just bought a brand new car. She had more than a few harsh words for him and it was a bad situation. The DPS actually took his licenses that day and we told him he would never get it back. Him being so stubborn he still tried to sneak and drive, so we had to take the keys to the cars because he could convince my MIL that he was okay to drive. The only way we knew that was one day I caught him creeping down the road and I followed him back home and that was the end of that.

The bit of silver in this grey cloud is that your grandmother's vehicle was totaled. So unless she's like Sunshine's FIL, what would she drive to church or the grocery store?

My mom is now 90 but when the time came for her to stop driving, we made sure to get her a state ID card to quell her fear that without a DL she wouldn't be able to cash checks, fly, etc. When we were waiting in line at the DMV to get the ID, she said, 'you know, maybe I should still get a license just in case you need me to drive sometime.' My response was 'there are five other drivers, Mom, so you don't have to worry about it. You've been chauffeur for the family for long enough.'

The only thing I recommend is that you ask your grandmother out often. She's used to going to the cemetery, church, etc. It will take all of the family to help her get used to not driving without feeling like a caged bird.

Luckily for us when my mother thought she couldn't drive any more (at age 90) she stopped on her own. She was too scared to get behind the wheel. Dad was a different story, although he stopped - he used to tell mom he thought he could still drive. Even drove one day when she was out with my sister - but mom caught him. I believe that was the last time he did drive.

I think where I fell short was the fact that my Aunt, my mother and I were the end of the line. There was no one else to drive and I worked [still do] all the time. My mom picked up the slack until she had no business behind the wheel, then I had a 'hired hand' who took up some slack and ended up with a nice car to boot in the end.

Lack of family makes all of the above that much harder...but you do what you have to. That's all you can do.

Thank you all for sharing your experiences with taking away driving privileges! It is definitely a challenge but hopefully with her car totaled, it won't even be an option for her to drive since she doesn't have a vehicle anyway. My mom is able to do a lot of the running around for grandma and truly does the bulk of it. I typically will only have to if my mom is out of town or there's a scheduling conflict with grandma's appointments and my niece needing to be picked up at school. Mom is at grandma's house everyday to check on her too. We will be able to get her to where she needs to go but it's still hard to tell her that she's not allowed to drive.

We didn't tell Mom she wasn't allowed to drive. Mom had a similar accident and we had a family discussion about buying another car and everyone helped her come to the conclusion that it wasn't a good idea. Truly, it went much easier when she was given the room to gracefully acquiesce to not having a car which led to not renewing her license, etc.

My mom has never driven - in a city that doesn't do well with public transport. She's always relied on family, friends and neighbors. Because of her fear of not being able to get to a store she's now in the habit of buy/hoarding diapers, toilet paper and paper towels. We tease her about this habit of hers. Most of us agree that we would stock up on groceries!

I'm hoping this type of situation will be easier for my generation and the ones that come after because we know we can have anything we want or need delivered to our door with a couple of clicks (including toilet paper :D). My parents didn't understand that nor was it quite so easy even a few years ago. My mom had her license revoked when she had her stroke and my dad was able to drive himself around until he passed...he was 85. His driving days were numbered though. The winter before he passed, my dad was walking across the parking lot to get to his car to just "go for a drive" when he slipped and fell. This was in Minnesota...in January. Fortunately somebody came along not too long after he fell and helped him up. And did I mention we had just had an ice storm and nothing had been sanded yet. But he was going to "go for a drive". When he called and told my sister what happened (I think he thought he was going to get some sympathy), she told him that he needed to get his car keys together because she was coming over to get them and he was done driving. She was so mad...well, she was so scared because again, Minnesota, January...lots of ways the whole situation could have gone sideways because he wanted to go for a drive. Anyway, he called me as soon as he got off the phone with her and I got to his apartment before she did and we were able to work out a compromise. We laugh about it now but at the time, it was kind of painful, not only for him but us as well. No one wants their independence threatened nor their dignity taken away. We just wanted him, and the other people on the road, to be safe.

Fortunately, my grandma who got her license at age 69 (taught how to drive by yours truly), gave her license up pretty easily a couple of years ago. No major accidents (unless you count the one time before her driving exam where she plowed into the DMV with the car and created a drive through window where one didn't exist before) she was a pretty decent driver. Whole 'nother story.

But as a women with a penchant for card playing and beer, she had a hard and fast rule: one drink and she was ok to drive, two drinks she locked her keys in the car and would walk home. So luckily her places of need to visit were within close distance of her home, walking was just as easy for her. So a standard week was volunteer at the food pantry, then visit the tavern to play cards with her brothers. Volunteer at the old fogies at the nursing home (old fogies? seriously, she is older than half of the people in there), then to the tavern for drinks with the girls. Church and errands, then to the tavern... you see a pattern I assume. It was not unusual to see her car parked on main street in front of the tavern overnight 2-3 days at a time as she would walk down the next day to fetch the car, and lo and behold, someone to play cards with!

For her, it just became too much of a hassle to try to get the car home that it was just became easier to walk or hitch a ride with someone else to get where she needed to go. Small blessings.

My dad wouldn't go down to the senior center to play cards and such because they were all just a bunch of "old people"...snort...I had to point out that one of this daughters was most likely older than the people that hung out there. He wasn't convinced.

^^^this is the biggest issue that, imo, we must keep in mind as we deal with our aging parents. From the time we're born we're in a hurry to grow up and do all the things that grown-ups can do. Then we get to the age of our parents and we're told we have to go backwards and give up all this things one by one, and depend on others for those things we've long done for ourselves. It's a struggle for me to remember this all the time. I try hard to come up with other ways for Mom to 'help' the family and know how important she still is to all of us. It may just be sitting at the kitchen table cutting up veggies to 'help' with dinner but she beams at knowing that she's still needed.

sorry...didn't mean to go off topic.

Just Jay - your story made me smile.

Truffle - I totally agree. I try to imagine how hard it would be for me to give up driving. There would be absolutely no independence and that would be horrible.

We have an advantage in the city now with alternate sources of transportation, but I still don't like the idea of telling mom that she shouldn't drive. In her case, it may come down to a financial decision. Her insurance premiums went up considerably after 2 accidents in less than a year.

I agree with you on this! Last summer when we were getting ready for my son's graduation party at my house, we were doing a bunch of yard work and planting flowers. Grandma insisted on coming up to help. I had to get creative in ways she could help but not get hurt. She loves to plant flowers so I was able to give her a little stool to sit on and plant the flower pots. It kept her from stumbling or tripping while the rest of us laid bark and did other things around the yard. Another day she came up and I set up the card table in the shade and had her sit there and wrap up the utensils in napkins. Such a simple job but I told her how much it helped me out and so knowing that, she was able to get that done and feel useful.

So so important to make them feel like they are still needed and useful while making sure that they don't get injured in some way! When grandma gets tired, she starts to stumble and makes us pretty nervous. She has a hard time lifting her legs up so she trips easily. Plus the sun will drain her energy so we had to make sure she wasn't in the direct sunlight.

Introduce her to the wonders of Amazon Prime Pantry!! Or Subscribe & Save!

Almost every grocery store around here now has free delivery of online orders. Or they'll have them ready at the door for someone to pick up. My 90 year old mom has learned to use a cell phone and a tablet so it's doable if you have the patience to get your parent's confidence up and make them realize it's not really going to blow up on them.

Some thing that anyone 60 or younger does not have to worry about is driving. Self driving cars are here, and will be as common as automatic transmissions in pickup trucks in three to five years. No skill involved.

Dad gave up his license and independence when he thought he had a mild stroke while driving. It was very hard for him. A self driving car would have meant the world, but he passed 18 years too early.

We still don't have many delivery services available here in the swamp. But I'm thinking, after reading all of this, I need to be making extra sets of keys for my tractor...just in case !

Self driving cars just seem so impossible to me....still...even in a few years.

But now JJ's mom...I think she and I could be very good friends! !